A framework for TA teams to plan and scale tech talent

With Talent Acquisition teams working on planning ahead for the next year activities, they are set to enter an ecosystem in 2022 which is expected to be even more challenging and hungrier for tech talent. The demand-supply gap is set to widen even further in the coming year. TA teams must work on finer aspects to refine their strategy and get a leg up in the talent market. Some points which can help TA teams better compete for talent:

Define success metrics — Step 1 for achieving any objective or goal is to define what success looks like. It could be reducing the time to close a job opening, expansion into a new location, hiring and building a completely remote team, scaling talent in a new vertical etc. Define your metric and align your team to it.

Build resourcing — Step 2 would be to build capabilities. Want to focus on hiring tech talent with specific skillset?, have a technical recruiter with strong technical knowledge. This will help in sourcing the niche tech talent such as a Clojure or Rust developer. The right technical recruiter will help craft better JDs and provide the right expertise in screening technical candidates. They will also guide the talent sourcers in building the pipeline for technical talent.

Execute your plans — Step 3 is where significant opportunity lies is gaining an advantage over competitors.

• Write a good quality job description. Large share of potential candidates are self-rejecting or apply but do not go past the first technical round. This is often due to mismatch in the expected workload and the roles and responsibility highlighted in the JD. Some companies hire for software developers but the candidate ends up working in non-development related fields such as analytics, cloud support etc. This mismatch can be avoided by writing good well defined job roles and job titles in consultation with the tech team. A JD is the most likely the first interaction between the company and the potential hire — take time in crafting a carefully worded document.
• TA teams have to become partners in building the company brand. TA professionals are increasingly leveraging social media platforms for building the company and personal brands by acting as content creators and strategists. Digital marketing/branding maybe the skill that gives you the edge in a competitive environment and thus helping you get to the right candidate faster and more efficiently. This however is not a quick fix unlike the previous point, this requires deliberate consistent effort by your team. This has the potential to elevate your team from good to the best.

Something interesting which companies are doing is hiring talent from their own communities. Appsmith a fast growing Indian start-up working on an open-source tool for software developers has in the past hired from their customer support slack channels. The contributors to the source code become fans of the product and have ended up working there.

Evaluate and Scale — Step 4 is all about taking a step back and scoring your team on the pre-defined metrics. Identify what worked and what didn’t. Enough said.

As the tech talent competition intensifies, it is important to be addressing the needs in a sustainable manner. There is no magic button which TA teams have. All the best planning for the activities ahead!