COVID-19 has changed the processes of hiring for both recruiters and job seekers. In nearly every field, companies are using mainly remote or hybrid systems to organize their teams. So what is the best way to address these challenges when looking to hiring an engineer? If you’re looking for a solution to this question, then read on!
To better understand the hiring process in IT, let’s dig into the essence of hiring in general.
What is a hiring process?
An efficient and effective hiring process is a step-by-step procedure for recruiting a new employee. Usually, an organization identifies its talent needs, recruits from its talent pool, and eventually hires the most qualified candidates. Each company has its own hiring processes. Yet, things don’t always go as planned. The hiring process can be really complex.
With this in mind, let’s check out 5 tips that will minimize some hardships that may complicate your recruiting process.
1. Set Goals
The process of hiring an engineer begins by identifying a need within your organization. This need could vary from filling a vacant position, better managing a team’s workload, or expanding the reach of organizational tasks. To better set your goals, elaborate on the vision of the company. You may be surprised how a clear vision can point the way toward setting the right goals. Here are some questions you can ask yourself that can make the process of setting goals easier.
- What gaps exist in the company and how will hiring a new employee bridge the gaps?
- How will a new hire contribute to the company’s vision?
- What skills will a new hire bring with them that will enhance the team? In other words, what benefits can the company/manager can expect from the employee (e.g. previous experience at workplace, working with big clients, etc.)
2. Research
If done correctly, research will set the foundation. Regardless of how time consuming this process can be, if you put the time in up the front, you will reap great rewards. You can NOT skip the research if you are looking for the best engineers or IT specialists. Research is a two-sided process. At the end of the day, the candidate has researched the company in order to get a better sense of where they are going (or simply to prepare for the interview). Companies and recruiters should make sure they do their research, too. Some hiring managers start studying the LinkedIn pages of their candidates, others ask for reference letters and make calls to their previous employers to ask for recommendations. But no matter what prior research you’ve done, an interview is still the best instrument to study the candidate’s hard and soft skills. For many hiring managers it’s a real challenge to hold a professional interview. So in case you need help with preparation, find out the 10 best questions to ask your candidate here.
3. Set resume filters
After setting your goals and doing your research, the next step is to set resume filters. Whether you are hiring an engineer or other IT professional, there are a number of aspects involved in the process. When you are going through thousands of resumes, it is better to set filters from generic to specific. Filers will help you stay focused.
For example, one of your generic filters can be work experience and years in the field. In this case, an example of the filtering process can be to consider the candidates with at least 2 years of experience. Further, based on your research, you can set more specific filters.
4. Comparison
Once you have a solid list of properly sourced candidates, it’s time to set up your comparison. Competition can be tough, especially if the company or manager seeks engineers for high-growth B2C and SaaS, Web and Mobile technology-focused positions to solve problems across modern web/mobile UI, distributed systems, cloud, data ingestion/processing, and automated testing/deployment. In high-demand specializations like Backend, Java, Python, NodeJS, and Golang, you might find many highly qualified candidates vying for one vacant position. Yet, when compared to each other, the choice can be much easier. For example, the candidates can be compared across money/contribution efficiency aspects. In this case, there is a chance that two equally qualified candidates expect different salaries based on their previous experience. If this is the case, you can prioritize the candidate that expects a lower salary.
Talking about salaries, if you are unsure about how much you should pay your employees check out our article or use the HIRECLOUT salary calculator.
5. Outsource
As they say, “if you can’t bake a cake, buy it from the store.” At first sight it’s a bit trivial but it’s actually spot on! Regardless of how many articles you read on a topic, remember that there are professionals who read more than you. In some cases it’s better to trust the professionals. In the case of hiring new employees in a Covid-19 impacted market, we strongly suggest researching the market and understanding the benefits of trusting an experienced recruiting and consulting firm.
HIRECLOUT stands out from the rest with market mastery, a focus on retention, our guarantee and our mission to build relationships that last.
- Market Mastery. Specialized and focused exclusively on tech, product and IT roles.
- Relationships That Last. We leverage decades of combined recruiting experience, strong technical skills and bleeding-edge tools to match the right candidate to the right company and culture.
- Retention Focused. You can be sure about a track record of candidates who have long tenures and advancements at the companies we’ve placed them.
- Our Guarantee. We are so confident in our retention-based hiring process, not only do we do the standard 60-day replacement guarantee, but we will also replace the original hire for half the price if they leave in 18 months.
So at the end of the day, the hiring an engineer is not as easy as it may seem. If you want to hire the best possible candidate, breaking the process into smaller steps and paying attention to the details during each step is a must.
However, if your time is limited, it’s better to rely on professional recruiting firms.
To further explore the benefits of outsourcing, take a look at one of our previous articles.
