It’s becoming harder than ever before to find good tech talent. The explosive growth of tech companies have brought about a candidate-driven market. Talented IT resources are in great demand and are now able to fetch higher salaries and benefits due to the intense competition in the current job market.
This makes it particularly difficult for firms without substantially deep pockets to access the talent pool. As talent gets more demanded, companies find it harder and harder to fill their roles.
So most of them then look towards specialist IT recruitment agencies.
The process can appear to be daunting for those who don’t have any experience with it. There are plenty of bad experiences going around of companies that had issues with IT recruiting or with IT talent agencies. However, the good news is that not all agencies work the same way and there are a lot of misconceptions around the subject but they don’t take away from the undeniable benefits that come from using an IT recruitment firm.
How does an IT recruiting firm help companies find tech talent
Information technology recruiters can help companies quickly find tech talent for both on-site and remote teams. That’s because they’ve already done much of the heavy lifting before a partner even approaches them.
These firms essentially function as headhunters for software engineers, developers and IT professionals. They work to create and foster vetted and verified talent pools of skilled developers and engineers who pass through different evaluation levels before they are added to the talent pool.
Once a partner reaches out to the firm with a request, it can quickly tap into the talent pool and connect them with the most qualified IT resource that meets their technical and budgetary requirements.
When and Why Do Most Companies Approach IT Recruiting Agencies to Help Them With Their Sourcing
There are a few scenarios in which most companies approach IT recruitment agencies to help them find the talent that they need. It’s usually when they need to fill a difficult-to-fill position, close skill-gaps, increase their talent reach or tap into international engineering pools.
There are companies who lack the manpower, reach or processes to conduct the hiring process themselves efficiently. It would take them months to sort through candidates and interview them to find the perfect match and in today’s fast-moving world of technology, that’s simply not scalable.
Other companies who have the manpower, reach and even processes, often decide to work with technology headhunters when they need to add additional recruiting power, or looking to tap into countries or industries where they lack expertise. Another alternative is when companies need to scale up their teams temporarily, usually done through staff augmentation, and can find an all-in-one solution through a recruiting firm – talent and management.
What are Some Risks Associated with Engaging Recruitment Agencies
Usually the first question for a company considering external recruitment is how much does it cost to hire a headhunter, if they are worth it and if the entire process is actually going to be risk-free.
Overpromising and under-delivering by the contracted agency is a risk that companies need to be mindful of. Some unscrupulous agencies might not have the kind of skilled talent in their pool that they boast about. Others might have hidden fees that they may charge clients down the line.
Another risk is that the agency might arbitrarily assign resources without taking into consideration the culture and dynamics of the client company. That would greatly impact the synergy between the resource and the client.
To ensure that this doesn’t happen, it’s important for companies to really take the time to evaluate the recruiting firm and understand them from different perspectives: talent availability, fee transparency, sourcing process, talent pool size, hiring final decision, among others.
Common Problems, Drawbacks, and Challenges Associated with IT Recruiting
Language barrier
This is a common problem that companies face when they recruit resources from across the globe. The people that ultimately come to work with them may have a significant language barrier to overcome. This can impact workflows and actually prove to be counterproductive.
Exaggeration of skills
It’s not uncommon for people to exaggerate about their skills. If the resource hasn’t been properly vetted by the IT recruiting agency, there’s a possibility that they could end up in a role that they’re not fully qualified for. That ends up wasting even more of the client’s time.
Lack of ownership with contracted talent
A remote worker that’s only meant to work in a temporary role might not take ownership of the project. The client would thus struggle to extract quality work from them that’s up to the standard that they’re expecting.
Misalignment of priorities
It’s entirely possible for there to be a mismatch in the priorities of the client and the resources that they bring on board if the recruitment agency hasn’t done the due diligence required to ensure that the contract is a good fit for both parties.
Cost escalations
Some agencies might present themselves as very competitive on cost but clients can face the drawbacks of cost escalations down the line. They might have to put up with the antics if they’ve already brought the resource on board. It would likely be more costly for them to go through the entire recruitment process once again.
The Myths About IT Recruiting Agencies You Need to Forget
Myth No. 1: IT recruiting agencies are prohibitively expensive
There’s a common misconception that hiring an external IT recruiting agency is going to be more costly. That’s not always the case. Most agencies will actually only charge fees for their services once they’re able to find a resource for the client that’s fully qualified and the position is filled. Their fee ranges for direct hires usually go from 8% – 25% of the hired engineer yearly salary depending on the firm size and specialty.
Myth No. 2: You have no control over the hiring process
Companies don’t want to lose control over the hiring process. They want to ensure that they’re heard and that their concerns are addressed. The best IT recruitment agencies will always strive for the satisfaction of the client rather than trying to impose on them, thus adapting to any and all requests including the number of interviews, code challenges or technical interviews the hiring company wants to have.
Myth No. 3: They’re only good for filling temporary positions
The best IT headhunters aim to provide skilled resources for full-time positions as well. They take care of the difficult task of sourcing, vetting and ensuring culture-fit and interest before presenting any candidate to the partner company, reducing the time it takes to hire long-term engineers.
When You Should Use an IT Recruiting Agency
An IT recruiting agency is helpful for startups, medium-sized companies, as well as large enterprises, what changes is the approach they take on how they use these firms.
If you’re a startup looking to accelerate your product launch or handle demand peaks, consider using an IT recruiting agency to scale up your team quickly and without having to hire internal HR managers or recruiters. Doing so would enable you to quickly address business needs and sustain the growth momentum.
For medium-sized businesses that have a strong internal IT team, an external agency can help you augment it with specialized talent. You can tap into an agency’s talent pool for resources on a part-time or permanent basis in order to further build out the capabilities of your team.
It would also make sense to use these agencies when you want to completely build out a nearshore or remote team to which non-essential tasks can be delegated. This frees up time for the core team that can then focus on more important tasks.
For large enterprises, engaging with a recruiting firm allows them to tap into niche talent markets where they have no specialty or experience like recruiting in Latin America or finding a very specific type of developer in Mexico. Large enterprises benefit in seeing IT recruiting agencies as extensions of their existing HR team, who are paid only when they bring value to the table.
How CodersLink Has Helped Companies with Recruiting Needs
CodersLink is one of the top IT recruitment agencies in the world. We have partnered with more than 120 different companies to help them meet their hiring needs in record time. Rackspace, a leading US cloud computing company, reduced it’s time-to-fill for challenging job openings and cut recruiting costs by 40% through CodersLink’s services.
Easy Expunctions required remote junior and senior developers to scale a software product. It was able to eliminate initial hiring costs and reduce overall time spent in the hiring process by tapping into our talent pool to hire more engineers within their budget.
CodersLink has a talent pool of more than 15,000 pre-vetted candidates that are thoroughly vetted for cultural, communication, soft skills, and undergo stringent technical evaluations before being paired with clients. Clients who utilize our expertise are able to shorten recruitment processes significantly while also saving up to $50,000 in labor and benefits cost per hire.
