Finding, attracting, and recruiting a technical writer isn’t anything easy to do. Moreover, the process itself can be time-consuming and costly if not done right.
However, we live in a world where talent and opportunity are highly demanded, so it shouldn’t be something that restricts your business growth. Finding the right talent, especially in the technical world, is not as complicated as it seems but requires you to follow the proper steps.
Therefore, in this article, we will show you the nine technical recruitment tips you need to follow for hiring some of the best talents.
Table of Contents
9 Technical recruitment tips for hiring top talents
1. Have a deep understanding before you hire a technical writer
For instance, if you want to hire a technical writer, you must have a strong understanding of the technological world. It’s impossible to be able to fully evaluate a technical candidate if you lack the knowledge yourself.
For example, suppose you want to hire a full-stack developer. In that case, you should know they must be competent in coding in several frameworks and languages, understand the coding standards and possess problem-solving skills. The same goes for a technical writer. Being a writer isn’t easy, so you need to see if they have the skills required to write in the technical field.
There are many cases where a technical writer might be a developer or in another technical field. Of course, this is better for them, but at the same time, they need to have the writing skills to show what they know.
Also, not every developer and writer doesn’t have the same skills. In this case, you must distinguish the differences. Finally, you will conduct several interviews with these candidates, so it’s vital to have the skills to evaluate them.
2. Source your candidates from the ATS
If you spend enough time sourcing through your qualified candidates, you won’t only find suitable candidates; you’ll have enough time to find qualified candidates you can recruit in the future.
For most companies, re-engaging with your candidates helps build up your talent pool and, thus, will be easier for you to make better hires in the future.
The Applicant Tracking System (ATS) helps you automatically screen out the most qualified candidates from hundreds of them. No more traditional hiring methods where you had to manually go through hundreds of applications to find the right one.
3. Look at the candidate’s problem-solving skills
Beyond communication and writing, top talents should have problem-solving skills. Here are a few important skills to assess when interviewing a candidate:
- Problem-solving: Technical talents should be able to define a solution for every problem, breaking it down into several manageable parts and providing creative solutions.
- Numerical reasoning: This is the ability to conclude data gathered. This means interpreting graphs and identifying patterns and trends. This is an essential skill if your candidate is going to produce reports.
- Verbal reasoning: Is used for coming to conclusions based on the text. However, verbal reasoning is used for drawing analogies, a powerful skill when simplifying complicated subjects.
- Data: Your candidate should know how to analyze data if required. Thai includes creating a chart or graph, writing reports, and more. Especially if you are a technical writer, this is very important.
4. Build brand authority
What comes to your mind when you think about Google, YouTube, and Facebook? You already know about them. What if Google called you to fill a position tomorrow? It will seem like a big opportunity, correct? The same goes if you own a company with brand authority.
If your brand authority is high, it’ll be easier for you to attract top talents. However, let’s not forget that top talent will go after brands with bigger budgets and goals, especially in the technical world.
When building your brand authority, here are a few methods you can use to influence top talents:
- Invitations: Nothing makes candidates feel valued more than being invited to apply somewhere. If you are a recruiter and want to tell your CEO about a new experienced candidate, guess what? Nothing feels better!
- Reach: The interview can go either way, so candidates need to ask questions, so you can see if they are the right fit or not. Even when you don’t directly interview candidates, you need to have a regular flow of showing how your company operates and what will keep it on top.
- Communicating the company’s goals: Always remember that a company that doesn’t show its goals might not attract top talent. You can do this by including it in your job description, social media posts, the company’s website, and more. In other words, you are showing candidates what direction your company is heading towards.
- Talent Community: Having a talent pool/community is the core of having a successful business. You can do this by posting forums, holding talks, and more.
5. Referrals
You’d be surprised how many good hires you can make with referrals. But unfortunately, most hiring managers highly underestimate them. In fact, 82% of employers claimed that referrals generate the best return on investment when hiring new talent.
Maybe you are partnering up with other organizations and have a good referral they can give you. It’s always important to use them to your advantage, especially when you hire technical candidates.
6. Evaluate the candidate’s communication skills
Communication is the key to all skills. We might have a problem if you don’t know how to communicate what you know. Therefore, when you assess candidates’ skills, evaluate their communication skills and see how they show their level of knowledge.
This is a fundamental skill all technical candidates need to succeed in the field. You can’t afford to hire someone that doesn’t do good in this field. For example, Steve Jobs wouldn’t be as successful as he was if he hadn’t had that good communication skills. As a result, he sold millions of people before the event ended!
7. Use LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a fast-growing online business social media channel. There are more than 300 million active users each day on LinkedIn. It’s becoming one of the best job searching online platforms, so where there are many users, there must also be many top talents.
The best part about LinkedIn is that you can directly chat with other business members and candidates. In addition, you can write a post about the candidates you are looking for and even ask your connections to share it. It’s an effective way of finding great candidates, so use it to your advantage.
Also, let’s not forget that you can create job posters on LinkedIn. Add the frame “Hiring” to your profile picture, and many will know what you are looking for!
8. A desire to learn and grow
There’s nothing better in the tech world than having the desire to learn and grow. Top tech candidates need this for this field; hiring them is difficult if you can’t find it. In other words, they need new tools and methods to do this, so ensure your company delivers that.
So, the real question you may ask is how to figure this out. Do you ask the candidate if they like to grow? No!
You can create a technical challenge. Use online technical tests to help you find out if candidates have a growth mentality and if they are the right choice.
9. Build up your network
There are countless ways you can build your professional network. You can do this on social media channels, especially on channels like LinkedIn. Also, you can ask your employees to do it for you. Encourage them to stay more active on their profiles and look out for any potential tech hires you can make.
Twitter and GitHub are other alternative solutions. It all depends on your wants and which channel best fits your team.
Wrapping it all up
That’s it for this article. These are our nine technical recruitment tips for hiring the best tech candidates in your business. Hiring the right tech candidate is difficult since they also expect many things from you. So, this isn’t only a one-way deal but counts for both sides.
Top tech candidates usually want to be part of a goal-oriented company with high expectations. Also, don’t forget about providing your tech employees with the right tools so you can help them leap forward in their careers.
Finally, do what you can to hire the best candidates, build up your professional network, use an ATS, an online technical test assessment, and all the other steps we mentioned. Do that, and you should be on a good path!
About the author:
Tony Ademi is a freelance SEO content and copywriter. He has been in the writing industry for three years and has managed to write hundreds of SEO-optimized articles. Moreover, he has written articles that have ranked #1 on Google. Tony’s primary concern when writing an article is to do extensive research and ensure that the reader is engaged until the end.
