Know What You’re Recruiting For
When I recently spoke to a hiring manager about the greatest challenges in recruiting software engineers, I realized the striking similarity between recruiting for highly specialized positions and discovering your needs and wants in a romantic relationship: You often don’t know what you’re looking for.
One of the major challenges for recruiters and human resource managers today is attracting and retaining talent for a wide range of professions. Especially when recruiting for key positions that demand highly technical expertise, an HR Generalist can easily get overwhelmed.
The overall understanding of the role you’re trying to fill starts with the job title. It has to be a good fit for the person you’re looking to hire and it has to encourage the right candidates to apply. This means it should also serve to raise curiosity in passive candidates who are not actively seeking jobs.
Especially when creating titles for job ads or listings used on online platforms such as LinkedIn, the title can be decisive. After all, you need to know what you want.
Therefore, when you are looking for a C#/C++ software engineer, searching with this exact title might bring you a great C#/C++ software engineer. However, the specificity could possibly alienate other talented software engineers who are not just capable of programming with C#/C++, but are also able to create other technologies that thrive in that framework. The question is, are you looking for someone to fulfill your current needs and wants or are you searching for that significant other who will also be able to fulfill your future expectations? Consequently, looking for a broader persona with a wider skill set often leads to higher success and innovation in the long run. Instead of C#/C++ engineer, try “creative software developer” and include the specific skills needed in the description.
Nevertheless, the obstacle of understanding the technical requirements as an HR generalist remains. Unless you majored in computer science, it’s likely that you’ll have a problem understanding the major challenges of the position. Lucky for you, this isn’t a rarity in today’s recruiting world. There are many industry resources that can assist you in understanding the components of certain positions and the latest innovations in the field. A great go-to resource are tutorials on YouTube where you can find not only explanations of certain professions but also clips of “the daily life of a software engineer,” just to give an example. To find out what is currently discussed in the industry, search online forums and check out the social analytics site Topsy. This can also give you a great nerd bonus when speaking with candidates and allow you to break the ice easily.
Besides the endless supply of online sites, you have an even better resource under your own roof—your employees. Experts from the team you’re hiring for can give great advice about the requirements of the job. Depending on the importance of the position, you may even consult company management. Experienced professionals can assist you in defining the desired impact that the new hire should make from a technical perspective, but also from a leadership and a teamwork perspective. This will also give you a better idea of what questions to ask when interviewing prospective job candidates. This brings us right back to our relationship dilemma: Sometimes you need to go above and beyond to find out what you really want. Although this might take a longer time to find what you’re looking for, it might leave you with your ideal candidate (or relationship).
What resources do you use to gain a clearer understanding of what you’re recruiting for? Comment and share your advice!