Top 5 Challenges in
Technical Recruiting

chillibreeze writer — Shalini Yallapragada

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Human resources and recruiting has come out of its cocoon and has emerged as a booming business. Recruiting firms and placement agencies are mushrooming everywhere. In almost all sectors, aspiring job seekers need to approach a recruiter or head-hunter to get noticed in the job market. Recruiting for technical and non-technical positions has become a highly sought after job in today’s market. However, sourcing for a technical position is very different from sourcing for a non-technical position such as in sales & marketing, finance, management and administration & support, and comes with its own set of challenges.

1. De-coding the Job Requirement: To be a successful technical recruiter, understanding the job requirement is very important. This needs broad knowledge in technology, like being able to differentiate between HTML and DHTML and being aware that JAVA in the Tech sector does not mean a type of coffee. The technical recruiter should know the difference between the roles of a software developer and that of an analyst or a project manager. The job involves tedious browsing of resumes full of technical acronyms. There is also the challenge of dealing with false or fake resumes and with tech candidates who are very good at saying exactly what the recruiter wants to hear. The recruiter has to do his homework about the requirement and has to get resourceful in learning the basic technicality of the position to be able to pick out the genuine candidates from the rest.

2. Overcoming the Layers: The challenges that the technical recruiter faces also depend on the company he is working for. It is very important to partner with clients, especially with the HR managers to get the foot in the door. Being on the client’s preferred vendor list is a big advantage for the recruiting company and the technical recruiter. Due to the sheer volume of resumes coming in for the same position, getting direct access to the hiring manager is the key to beat competition. The saying ‘Early Bird Gets the Worm’ couldn’t be truer in this line of business. Many times it does happen that the preferred vendors source the requirements out to smaller recruiting agencies. This means that the technical recruiters working for these smaller agencies or sub-contractors have to get their candidates first cleared by the preferred vendors before they can reach the HR manager’s desk. The smaller the recruiting agency is the more layers there are to deal with. This is one area the recruiters of small agencies have little control over and have to get creative in networking with the preferred vendors or “gate-keepers” for the end client.

3. Money Matters: The Tech sector has been very notorious for being highly volatile and unpredictable. Technical recruiting in most cases is a commission based job and making money in this field is very volatile. If the Tech sector is booming, life is a breeze and if it deflates, nothing is worse. In a slow economy hiring is slow and that hurts the recruiter. There are fewer job orders and for whatever little hiring is going on, the recruiter is under immense pressure by his client to get the best Tech candidate on a most competitive rate. It is always a challenge for the recruiter to talk money with the client or the Tech candidate especially if the candidate is highly experienced and has a specialized skill set. While the recruiter has to go by what his client says, since he gets paid by the client, it is important to make sure, that for the right candidate, money is not a deal-breaker.

4. Employee retention: Every technical recruiter will remember his first placement. Hours spent on cracking the code in the job requirement, screening resumes, interviewing potential candidates and getting THE interview with the hiring manager. Every step feels like a new milestone achieved. The candidate is signed on, the contract is in place, the start date is fixed, bells and whistles heard all around. Well, if lucky, things move on as planned. If not, any one of the following may happen;

A. No-Show: D-day arrives and the recruiter makes his calls to his candidate-turned-employee to make sure he reported to work. No answer. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It is the first day and he might be in orientation. A couple of hours later the recruiter gets the call from his boss and is told that his brand new consultant did not show up! Everyone is upset and the recruiter gets all the flak. It happens all the time. There will always be that Tech candidate, who has not one, but two or three gigs lined up for him and he picks the one paying the most.

B. “I Quit”: First placement done, few weeks gone by, hoping to see his first commission check arrive soon, the recruiter is motivated and moves on to the next requirement and the next set of resumes and potential candidates that comes with it. There is a new confidence in the air and the world is a much better place, when suddenly, BOOM! The guy just placed through a long drawn process of sweat and overtime, calls to say he is quitting because he does not like the work environment, or he does not like his supervisor, or that the work he is doing does not match his profile etc. etc. Each technical job has more to it than just the technical knowledge and skills. There are cultural differences and the like to deal with. Sometimes, even after the recruiter has done his best in finding the perfect match technically and culturally, things don’t work. The recruiter has to get very creative, not just in getting people on board, but also in keeping them there. Recruiting is all about people management and people will change their mind!

5. Sourcing Dead-End: Most technical recruiters at some point in the course of their work will hit a dead end while trying to source a candidate for a job requirement. There are times when browsing through the company’s candidate database, online job boards and online job listings just do not get the results needed. The recruiter’s creativity and ability to think on his feet gets challenged in such situations. The job is ready, waiting to be filled and there is competition to deal with. The success of the recruiter depends on the ability to overcome this challenge by getting creative and pulling out every trick there is to find a perfect match while adhering to high quality standards.

In every line of work challenges are dime-a-dozen. However technical recruiting does have the additional challenge of the “Technical” part. The skills are specific, the roles are varied and there are always three sides to the story, the client’s, the recruiter’s and the candidate’s. But in the end, after all the long hours of technical research, working the phones overtime, negotiating, sometimes even hitting your head to a wall, when all works out well and the project hums on like a well-oiled machine and the commission check is in......it is worth the while.

 

 

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Chillibreeze's disclaimer: This is a contributed article and was published on Chillibreeze in November, 2011. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of Chillibreeze as a company. Chillibreeze has a strict anti-plagiarism policy. Please contact us to report any copyright issues related to this article. The relevance of the facts and figures cited (if any) could change after a period of time.

 

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—About our writer: Shalini has about 7 years of professional experience in technical recruiting . She has been very successful in providing hiring solutions for companies like Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, Bank of America, Accenture and the U.S.Dept. Of Defense. She has experience in resume writing, technical writing, article writing and is an active blogger. She is a freelance writer now and her technical skills also include web design and web content writing. She is based in Mumbai, India.

 

 

 

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