Generic technical recruitment searches go wrong when they’re overly focused on CVs (lots of CVs!), speed, and/or keyword matching. Technical recruitment done well is all about digging a little deeper and working to uncover transferable skills, experience and success. It’s not always about finding an exact match to what’s in the job ad.
- Maybe your ideal Backend Engineer hasn’t used every single technology on your requirements list, but has extensive experience of designing and implementing complex, distributed systems and has worked at scale previously.
- Maybe the Cyber Security candidate has plenty of relevant experience of incident response or detection engineering, but their last few roles have had broad or unusual titles which make it not immediately apparent.
- Maybe your AI / ML candidates all tick the right boxes on paper, but in conversation reveal a limited understanding of the challenges of MLOps, or of the excitement of building products which are used by real humans!
Great technical recruiters really understand the market and know what experience, success, or seniority can sometimes look like under the bonnet. At EvoTalents, recruiters look to understand what a candidate has worked on, or what they have responded to in the past, and not necessarily just the titles or headline skills they have. Speed in technical recruitment is also important, but only up to a point! Providing you with lots and lots of CVs might sound like a good thing, but too many irrelevant CVs to look through is draining for everyone, most of all the hiring manager, probably the most expensive member of your hiring team. Five relevant CVs are infinitely better than twenty when eighteen of those won’t be right for the role. Good technical search will sometimes look like it’s moving more slowly at the beginning, whilst the requirements are being honed and tuned, but then pick up pace once the recruiter really knows what they are looking for, because the CVs which won’t be a fit won’t make it all the way through to your team.
What is full cycle tech search and why should you care?
Some roles are higher risk than others. Perhaps this hire will underpin your delivery over the next couple of quarters, or without this person onboard your roadmap will wobble. You need a recruitment partner who will own the full cycle of recruitment with you, right the way through to a signed contract. In tech, the best people are rarely sat around waiting for their next challenge. Often candidates will have notice periods to manage, a current role to continue excelling in and maybe even other processes already under way. If your process moves slowly, or falls quiet for a couple of weeks, it could all fall apart. This is where full cycle tech search can really help:
- Calibrate on requirements, meaning understanding where there is flexibility in your must-have skills and experience list and where there isn’t; what seniority you are hiring at; what the team looks like; what the candidate will be responsible for; the salary range (and whether there is wiggle room!); hybrid or remote flexibility; the process; and the reasons why someone would love working for your company.
- Agree a candidate profile, meaning what kinds of problems have your dream candidates worked on, and in what kinds of companies? What experiences have they had which would make them flourish in this role? Again, it’s not about ticking every last box here but agreeing where a candidate will really hit the ground running.
- Look at the market, meaning who is out there, what are they looking for, and are they passive? How does your opportunity sit against competing roles out there?
- Work on the approach, meaning finding a way to speak to candidates which interests and excites them. What is happening at that moment in their career that makes a new role appealing (or not)?
- Source, source, source! A good search partner will speak to candidates who are looking and those who aren’t, but might be enticed by the right role.
- Screen candidates and understand their technical skills and experience, identify any red flags and agree who should be introduced to you.
- Provide a really helpful shortlist! A good search partner will explain why someone could be a good match, their motivation, salary expectations, availability, some examples of their experience and strengths, and even suggest questions to ask in interview.
- Keep the process candidate-focused, making sure there are plenty of comms so no-one gets left behind and everyone knows what’s next, and when.
- Help with offer stages. There is plenty a search partner can help with here, from expectations, through negotiation, to nailing any remaining questions or doubts a candidate may have.
- Be a sounding board along the way. Maybe the salary band needs tweaking, or the process could move a little quicker? Or the role could be pitched slightly differently to really land with great candidates.
Great tech candidates won’t hang around! Full cycle recruitment search partners will help you iterate and adjust to secure your hires. Full cycle recruiting makes most sense when the following applies:
- Risk: high, for example your roadmap or product timelines will be at risk
- Roles: backend, AI / ML / data and product engineering; DevOps, SRE and platform roles that unblock engineering productivity so the team can ship great software more efficiently; security roles that reduce business risk and cover compliance requirements
- Team or company needs: building out new teams, offices or divisions, hiring a leader or tech lead, or niche tech such as fintech
- Business needs: without these capabilities your business could be impacted negatively, for example by not hitting growth or revenue targets
Full search is often more cost-effective
Full search is often done on a success-fee basis. This keeps the recruiter you partner with accountable from the start of the search process all the way through to securing a signed offer. It’s especially useful where you’re unsure of market appetite for a role, or have a more complex search process ahead, for example if you’re unsure whether the hire is feasible within your comp budget. Agreeing on the role upfront saves time and increases the chances of success.
How generic search can fail
- Outreach without calibration, which creates noise in and out rather than alignment from the outset on tech stack, seniority, scope and more.
- Screening without insight, which leads to an inconsistent shortlist. Judgement plays an important part in assessing culture add, technical capability, impact in previous roles, smart questions to ask and drilling into examples that provide insight into a candidate’s judgement.
- CV shortlists without a story, meaning you get a CV sent across but limited context on the why behind the shortlist. You might have to ask questions that should have been answered in the initial screening calls with candidates, slowing down the process and frustrating everyone. A good recruiter should provide all the relevant context on fit for the role, technical indicators, motivation for a move, areas to be mindful of (comp expectations, notice periods), any red flags that could surface in interviews, suggested next steps and areas to dig deeper. This equips you as the hiring manager with the insights to interview confidently, ultimately helping you to hire faster for your vacant roles.
- A poor candidate management process, which can be sneakier but can trip up even the strongest talent pipelines. It’s easy to underestimate the importance of managing candidates through the process, keeping everyone warm and excited about the opportunity to join the team, and keeping things moving. Tech roles are rarely static, so it’s likely that you’re competing with the status quo for candidates. They are balancing current roles, notice periods, competing offers and more, which means that if a hiring process feels drawn out or things go quiet, it may feel like the opportunity isn’t of much interest.
- Static briefs, when a good tech search should be iterative. Speaking to candidates can provide useful insights into where a brief could evolve or improve. A search partner will help you work through any changes, such as comp bands, seniority levels, role attractiveness, scope and more. Speaking to candidates may also help you work out what is a must-have tech requirement, a nice-to-have or a red herring!
Why might this be the right solution?
Time is usually what’s most at risk in generic search. The hiring manager will usually be the most expensive member of the hiring team, so it can be frustrating to feel like their time is being wasted wading through CVs and conducting interviews that are not quite right for the role. Specialist recruiters add more value when they understand the technical context: they can recognise nuance and read between the lines on CVs and in their discussions with candidates.
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