The Top Nine Challenges In Recruiting Qualified Talent For IT Companies

Since technologies are leaping forward boundlessly, finding qualified candidates for specific skills has become a major challenge for most IT firms. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the shortage of skilled and qualified engineers is expected to exceed 1.2 million by 2026. Reports like this reveal the grave difficulties IT companies have faced in filling IT positions over the past few years.

Although innovative technologies are paving the way for more IT jobs in South Carolina, most IT firms are faced with several hiring challenges. The use of conventional recruitment strategies is thought to be one of the major reasons for the dire shortage of qualified workers. The hiring process is further complicated by the lack of understanding of the changing IT requirements. Recruiters now have to be vigilant in finding and recruiting the right talent due to increased challenges. Through this article, we examine some of the major challenges affecting IT recruitment.

Top Nine Challenges Affecting IT Recruitment

The nine challenges laid down in the article are based on an extensive survey by a tech hiring platform that involved more than thousands of IT professionals and HR professionals from all over the globe.

1. Delay in the hiring process

Hiring is an arduous process. Multiple candidates are sought for multiple positions simultaneously by recruiters and hiring managers. Since the managers would have to process the candidate information and go forward with the recruitment process, it may take a few weeks before they get back to the candidates. As a result, candidates are likely to take up other offers by the time managers call back.

This delay in the hiring process and the subsequent lack of candidate engagement is a major reason for poor sourcing in IT companies. However, reducing the time to hire can be quite tricky, as it might result in the poor evaluation of candidates.

2. Declining number of qualified candidates

IT companies are working hard to fill open IT positions with qualified candidates. Cyberstates data analysis provides some interesting numbers. The data reveals that there were around 3.9 million IT job postings in 2020 in the US. However, there were less than 50% of qualified candidates available to meet this demand.  The lack of qualified candidates for IT jobs in South Carolina, and other regions of the US contributes significantly to poor IT talent sourcing.

3. Poor recruiter and hiring manager relationship

Recruitment can be affected by miscommunication between the hiring manager and recruiters. Often, miscommunication leads to a poor assessment of the skills required for a particular job. Instead of blaming each other for the recruitment inefficiencies, both parties must work and sort this out together. The hiring manager should provide insights into the roles and responsibilities of a job role. The recruiter should use this information to find suitable candidates.

4. Lack of proper branding

When it comes to making a job role stand out, branding is crucial. The number of tech positions has increased in the past few years, and companies are competing for the best candidates. Organizations that want the best talent should take every effort to make their job descriptions and hiring processes as attractive as possible. Candidates will be more likely to take up jobs with the most attractive offering, making the employer more desirable.

5. Hiring in haste

A perfect balance needs to be struck between the time taken to hire and the quality of the candidates. While delayed hiring can result in poor engagement with candidates and eventually lead to losing talent, quick hiring can compromise the quality of new hires. Thus, IT companies need strategies that balance the length of the recruitment process with the quality of the workforce recruited.

6. Poor utilization of data and analytics

Even though IT recruiters are well versed in various technical skills, they often overlook the importance of data and analytics. Data analysis helps recruiters make better decisions and improve their hiring processes. Data insights such as hiring ratios, skills in demand, and popular assessment methods, are particularly handy for recruiters to optimize their hiring functions.

7. Inefficient hiring process

Poor time management is one of the major reasons behind inefficient hiring processes. Routine and repetitive tasks like screening resumes for sourcing potential candidates may take considerable time. Traditional hiring methods end up costing recruiters a lot of time, energy, and money. Employers should utilize modern AI tools to increase hiring efficiency.

8. Evolving technology expertise

There is a shortage of available candidates for new technologies. Hence, IT employers find it difficult to recruit candidates for new technologies. Besides identifying qualified candidates, it is also difficult to assess the candidates for the job roles without subject matter expertise on the hiring team.

9. Inefficient use of technology

Finally, the lack of proper technology in the recruitment process can make the whole endeavor difficult and disengaging. Companies must incorporate modern hiring technology with more engaging tools and techniques to keep the tech-savvy candidates engaged.

If you have been facing these difficulties in your hiring methods, it is high time for you to change your approach. Here are a few incredible tips from top IT recruiters in the country to make your IT recruitment process easier.

Twelve tips to overcome IT recruitment challenges

• Avoid mentioning associate and four-year degree qualifications in your job descriptions. This opens the opportunity for a wide range of qualified candidates to apply for the position.

• Consider accommodating self-taught developers. While they may not have a collegiate education, these individuals can be huge assets to your projects.

• Use multichannel recruitment methods to find qualified candidates, such as through employee referrals and platforms like LinkedIn, Indeed, and others. 

• Conduct hackathons or coding contests to find incredible tech talents.

• Candidates in the IT field tend to be passive candidates who value company culture, flexible working hours, innovative technologies, and opportunities to develop their careers.

• Make use of social media to advertise company openings. Also, include accurate job descriptions on your company’s website.

• Post career events of your company on forums, job portals, and college newsletters.

• Referrals from employees reveal a lot about the company’s culture. Employees offer you good leads by referring to jobs within their organizations. 

• An IT candidate takes salary into account when selecting a job. If a salary hike is not feasible, consider improving company culture and offering fair job challenges and job flexibility to appeal to IT candidates.

• For IT employees, flexibility is a huge attraction. Providing schedule flexibility might work for tech candidates if your company can’t offer location flexibility.

• When recruiting IT employees, conventional interviews may not be the best process. Discuss the most effective recruitment methods with your hiring manager.

• Be specific and clear in your requirements. As opposed to traditional recruiting processes, where only recruiters are responsible for writing job descriptions, technical job descriptions require the input of hiring managers.

Over the past few decades, job markets have undergone significant changes. Hence, recruiters must devise proper strategies to attract top candidates. Follow the tips mentioned in this post to fill your IT jobs in South Carolina with suitable candidates. 

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