I’ve been working at a tech recruitment company for nine months now … and this is what I’ve learned

The tech industry can be intimidating for many people, even the most experienced. Imagine if you’re new to it and you’re in one of the most complicated parts: the recruiting process, the search for tech candidates, the optimization of offers for companies. This experience is shared with us by our business partner, Fiorella.

Barcelona, the well-known hub of tech companies. Who would have thought that a marketer would end up working in one? And not because we are not necessary, we are, but because personally, my knowledge in tech was zero. I am from El Salvador, a small but beautiful country in Central America, which despite making efforts to include technology, we are many years behind in comparison to Barcelona. That said, in addition to the above, I had zero knowledge in tech.

I’ve been working at Joppy for almost 9 months and I’ve learned many things that for someone “ZeroTechie”, as I was, can be very useful. Also if you are a recruiter, as I will give you tips for recruiter-dev interaction that I have seen on the platform.

Who has the bargaining power?

Referring to Porter’s 5 forces (as a good marketer), we can say that one principle is that the bargaining power is held by whoever has the money, which is generally the consumer. I like it, I buy it, I don’t like it, I don’t buy it. Or, consequently, “the product or service” that is in short supply and in high demand.

According to a report by the association of technology companies DigitalES, there are 120,000 unfilled tech vacancies in Spain. Why? Well, because technology is advancing, companies want to be at the forefront of change and update every day (digitization already affects all areas). And there is not enough supply of techies to cover all that demand. So now companies have to work hard on their Employer Branding and the benefits to offer, so that the techie you need chooses to work with you and not with the other 30 options they have. Clearly, the techie has the bargaining power.

A recruiter once told me “the tech processes take months for us to sign, and on the other hand, those of the other areas we can fill them in a week”. She shared with me that it was difficult to find techies, then if they are interested in the offer, then that they want to go through the recruitment process, then that they stay interested during the whole process and don’t drop out at the last minute to accept another offer. In short, if at each stage some of them drop the process, imagine how many make it to the end… and in how much time.

More and better incentives for tech talent

We have witnessed positive progress in the employer-employee relationship in all areas of work. Now, focusing on tech talent, incentives have been increasing more and more. Of the most common incentives I have seen are:

• Working remotely from any location
• Salaries much higher than those of other careers.
• When the offer is hybrid or onsite: relocation packs to the country/city of the company (work visa, housing voucher, school for the kids, transportation, etc).
• Annual budget for training in their preferred field
• Monthly voucher for meals
• Subscriptions to gym or sports activities
• More vacation days than usual
• Company stocks or shares

Corporate mindset focused on talent’s the wellbeing

The evolution of how companies now care about their Employer Branding and culture is quite positive.

It used to cost a bit more to invest in a company’s culture, but we’ve seen that in the long run it is an investment that’s more than well rewarded, as it attracts, and much more importantly, retains talent for a long time. Now, companies realize that without the right human resource, it can’t work.

I saw a reflection on LinkedIn the other day, and I couldn’t agree more. Summarizing, it said “It costs you more to have a high staff turnover than to invest in corporate culture and benefits for your employees, because if they resign you are left with no one in that vacancy for “x” days/weeks, you invest time in making a new hiring process, onboarding, see if they adapt or not to the culture or even if they like the job”.

Now imagine 10 quitting at once. It is much more efficient to provide the conditions and benefits so that your team feels good and does not leave, investing in a good corporate culture is the key.

In the techie code

According to the cases I’ve seen on Joppy, the most successful recruiter is the one who doesn’t settle for the traditional process or passes up a very good candidate because the candidate “doesn’t talk back.” And you can follow these three keys:

Zero spam in communication.

First, we must understand that a recruiter is working when trying to contact techies, so they dedicate several hours, want to meet their objectives and move at a fast pace, almost with urgency. On the other hand, techies are more passive, they are not in a hurry and see the messages in their free time. Once it is understood that the techies are not going to spend 24/7 hanging on their mails, the recruiter can save themselves a lot of worries and give them their space. I’m talking about approaching the techie in a “friendly” way and sending them a push if they don’t answer, but not filling them with messages or automatically discarding them.

Transparency to convince the techie

A recruiter must be clear in what he is looking for, techies don’t like an offer that says “competitive salary”, they want to see facts. At Joppy, with the help of AI and manual work, techies match job offers that fit their skills, experience and desired salary, so there is no time to waste. In addition to that, the techie has the option to be interested or not in the offer they have matched. That’s why we always say, the candidates that arrive on the dashboard of the recruiters that use Joppy, are the ones that match the vacancy and that are interested in working with them, a great time and effort saver.

Constant communication and follow-up

The techie who searches passively, as I said before, dedicates only his free time to it, and most of them are working in another company. Therefore, such a long selection process is annoying for them and they may lose interest before reaching the final stage. It is very important to be clear with them and explain the process and its timing, so that from the beginning they can decide whether to submit or not, since for a techie, the less complicated the better. The most frequent success stories I have seen in Joppy are precisely those that have a short and fast selection process. It is very important that the times are also short, because even if there are 2 steps in the process, if there is a difference of three weeks between one and the other, the techie may lose interest or accept another offer.

When a candidate does not meet a requirement or the recruiter decides to move forward with another candidate, it is very important to communicate the decision and give them feedback. Otherwise “recruiters” as a collective will not be very well regarded by the techies. This also happens when they “leave them in the fridge”, that is, open a vacancy, get applications, save them in the database for “later”, close the vacancy and dissapear without giving them any kind of response.

Links of interest

Want to know more about the tech sector? Do it in our article about salaries 👉🏻 https://blog.joppy.me/salaries-work-tech/

And if you want to know facts about communication in tech recruitment, here 👉🏻 https://blog.joppy.me/comunication-recruitment-tech/

Content at Joppy

Fiorella