Insights
Our official whiteboard for blog posts, musings, and occasional swashbuckling.
Stacy Diachenko
Tech expert
With a Master of Arts in Technology for Translation and Interpreting (yes it’s as cool as it sounds!), I’m 100% a technophile and wordsmith. I love making tech stuff sound human, and I constantly stay on top of the latest trends in technology. My goal is to write fun, insightful articles that are always ahead of the curve.
👍 Rating — 5 (6 votes)
The tech recruiting competition has reached unprecedented levels, as revealed by the Harvey Nash / KPMG CIO Survey, surpassing previous expectations. The situation appears grim, with statistics from the US Bureau of Labor indicating a staggering 1.4 million unfilled Computer Science jobs at the end of 2020, and a projected 1.2 million-person deficit in engineering positions by 2026. Despite the rapid growth in demand for tech talent, the supply of skilled workers has stagnated at a mere 400,000 graduates annually.
In response, employers find themselves entangled in fierce competition, vying for the best candidates by offering attractive salary packages, enhanced benefits, and promising career advancement prospects. While some companies succeed in attracting top-tier talent, others struggle to do so.
If you feel overwhelmed by the quest to identify the perfect developers for your organization while managing multiple priorities, know that you are not alone in this challenge.
The encouraging news is that there are always innovative methods to discover the right individuals for your company. I developed this technical guide for you, which will provide insights into:
We will start with a look at the current hiring challenge.
Look for a Proven Provider for Tech Recruiting. TurnKey is What You Need!
In this section, I delve into the pressing issues faced by organizations worldwide when it comes to hiring tech talent. From the ever-intensifying talent shortage to the complexities of global recruitment, I’ve analyzed the impact of these challenges on businesses. But first, let’s talk about tech talent.
Tech talent refers to individuals who possess skills, knowledge, and experience in various areas of technology, including software development, data analysis, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud computing, network engineering, and more. These individuals can apply their tech skills to solve complex problems, innovate, and drive growth within an organization or industry.
The term “tech talent” often includes both technical skills (like coding or systems analysis) and certain soft skills like problem-solving, critical thinking, and communication. Tech talent is highly sought after in the business world due to the increased reliance on technology across industries and sectors. The demand for tech talent has grown with the continued digital transformation of businesses, leading to a competitive market for those with the right set of tech skills.
And now that we know exactly what tech talent is, let’s continue with the challenges of its hiring.
The most significant modern recruiting challenge companies face today is the persistent talent shortage across various industries. Recent statistics from the US Bureau of Labor and other reputable sources I searched indicate a growing gap between the demand for skilled workers and the available workforce. For instance, a study by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) revealed that in 2023, nearly half of small businesses reported having job openings they couldn’t fill, primarily due to a lack of qualified candidates. This shortage has a cascading effect, forcing companies to compete fiercely for the limited pool of skilled individuals, resulting in prolonged recruitment cycles and potential impacts on productivity and growth.
Being able to hire high quality engineers quickly during talent shortages is a game changer for any early stage startup. TurnKey has made that possible for us and we are proud that it is one of our company’s strengths.
However, partnering with San Francisco’s recruiting companies like TurnKey offers a viable solution to overcome this scarcity. By collaborating with tech recruiting providers, companies can leverage the expertise of skilled developers from various parts of the world, effectively mitigating the impact of the labor shortage. This approach allows businesses to tap into a diverse pool of talented professionals, enabling them to reap the numerous benefits of a global workforce. With your recruiting partner, you can successfully navigate the following list of challenges posed by the software development shortage and propel your company towards growth and success.
Rapid advancements in technology have revolutionized the recruitment process. However, integrating and effectively leveraging new tools can be challenging. According to a survey by LinkedIn, 73% of talent professionals find keeping up with technology as their top hurdle. Companies need to navigate the vast array of applicant tracking systems, artificial intelligence-powered sourcing platforms, and other recruitment technologies to streamline their hiring process.
Remote hiring and onboarding have emerged as significant challenges in modern recruitment due to the shift towards remote work. Companies now face the task of sourcing, evaluating, and onboarding candidates without the benefits of face-to-face interactions. This process can be time-consuming and may lead to miscommunication or misunderstandings between the company and the new hire.
However, TurnKey offers a solution to tackle these challenges. By partnering with TurnKey, companies can seamlessly hire and onboard remote teams as if they were part of their in-house workforce. TurnKey’s model ensures a smooth transition, making remote teams fully integrated and cohesive without any hassles.
Here’s how TurnKey’s model helps overcome remote hiring and onboarding challenges:
TurnKey’s model allows us to easily integrate developers directly into our organization so that they are truly my team. I honestly forget most of the time that they aren’t working in the same building as me.
When hiring software developers, establishing a compelling employer brand is crucial for attracting top talent and standing out in a competitive job market. However, companies often face several challenges in building and maintaining an effective employer brand during the hiring process. Some of the key challenges include:
Overcoming these challenges requires a strategic and proactive approach to employer branding. Companies must conduct thorough research to understand their target audience, engage employees in the process, and invest in ongoing employer branding efforts to stay competitive in the talent market. A strong and authentic employer brand can make a significant difference in attracting the right talent and building a thriving workforce.
The rapid advancement of technology and the continuously evolving nature of the software development industry contribute to this gap. As a result, there is a disparity between the skills employers seek in software developers and the skills available in the talent pool. Several factors contribute to the skills gap challenge:
Compliance and regulation challenges are significant concerns for companies, especially when hiring remote teams or offshoring their operations. Adhering to various legal requirements and data protection laws is crucial to protect the company’s reputation, avoid potential legal consequences, and maintain the trust of clients and employees.
TurnKey recognizes the importance of compliance and has established robust mechanisms to overcome these challenges. Here’s how TurnKey supports its clients legally:
By addressing compliance and regulation challenges head-on, TurnKey empowers clients to focus on their core business objectives without worrying about legal complexities. TurnKey’s commitment to maintaining high standards of compliance instills confidence in clients, assuring them that their offshoring initiatives are in safe and capable hands.
Building a diverse workforce has become an essential goal for modern companies. While diversity brings fresh perspectives and enriches workplace culture, achieving it poses challenges. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) reported that 41% of organizations struggle to attract diverse candidates. Companies need to implement inclusive hiring practices, address unconscious bias, and actively source from underrepresented communities to foster a more diverse and inclusive workplace.
At Turnkey Labs, our corporate featured commitment to delivering exceptional offshoring solutions hinges on fostering a diverse and inclusive workforce that spans the globe. We take pride in recruiting top-notch development talent from various regions worldwide and ensuring seamless cultural integration for our clients. By creating inclusive work environments, we cultivate high-performing teams that not only drive innovation but also facilitate growth. Our commitment to diversity and inclusivity sets the foundation for delivering unique and effective offshoring solutions that cater to the dynamic needs of our clients.
In conclusion, while your companies face an array of recruiting challenges, the talent shortage remains the most significant obstacle. The demand for skilled workers continues to outpace supply, making it crucial for organizations to adopt innovative strategies and leverage technology to attract and retain top talent in today’s competitive job market. Simultaneously, fostering diversity and inclusion, adapting to remote hiring practices, enhancing employer branding, and ensuring compliance with regulations are equally vital components of a successful recruiting strategy in the 21st century.
Now, that you know what challenges may appear when hiring software engineers, let’s consider where to focus your attention when selecting your future employees.
TurnKey Offers a Compelling Solution That Delivers Top-Tier Offshore Talent Without Sacrificing Quality or Breaking the Bank.
After conducting deep research on hiring tech talent and speaking to our recruitment specialists, I’ve boiled it down to the crucial factors that are truly important in making the right hiring decisions:
By considering these important factors and looking for relevant examples in a candidate’s past experiences, you can make informed hiring decisions that lead to the acquisition of exceptional tech talent for your organization.
Having discussed the key points to look out for when hiring tech professionals, it’s only logical that we now progress to the next level: attracting premium tech talents.
It took some time, but our team of hiring gurus and I collaborated to develop this list of proven strategies for attracting high-quality tech talents to your organization. These strategies encompass a mix of employer branding, competitive compensation, and a focus on fostering a stimulating work environment that appeals to tech professionals seeking challenging and innovative opportunities. Let’s delve in and discover how they can help elevate your tech talent acquisition efforts to new heights.
Cultivating a positive and appealing employer brand is crucial for attracting tech talent. Showcase your company’s culture, values, and commitment to employee growth and development through social media, career websites, and employee testimonials.
From experience, we know that a tech startup who actively promotes its inclusive and innovative work culture through engaging content on LinkedIn can get up to a 20% increase in applications from skilled developers within three months.
Tech professionals highly value continuous learning and professional development opportunities. Offer training programs, workshops, and certifications to demonstrate your commitment to enhancing employees’ skills. For example, at TurnKey, fostering employee development is a cornerstone of our company culture, and we believe that investing in our team’s growth is essential to maintaining high retention levels that surpass industry averages. We have implemented a range of strategies and initiatives that empower employees we hire to thrive both personally and professionally, ensuring they feel valued and motivated to stay with us for the long term, drastically decreasing our churn rate.
Embrace flexible work arrangements, such as remote work options and flexible hours, as they are increasingly important to tech professionals. A study by Buffer found that 97% of tech professionals want to work remotely at least part-time.
Some tech companies that have implemented a flexible work-from-home policy have experienced a 25% reduction in employee turnover and attracted remote tech talent from different regions.
Offering competitive salaries and benefits is a powerful strategy to attract high-quality tech talent. According to a survey by Dice, 61% of tech professionals consider salary as the most important factor when considering a new job opportunity. Additionally, providing bonuses, stock options, and other incentives can further entice top candidates.
A tech company that offers above-average market salaries, performance-based bonuses, and stock options to its software engineers can attract up to 30% more applications from highly qualified candidates within six months.
Building relationships with tech communities, attending industry events, and maintaining an active presence on tech-specific platforms can help you establish a talent pipeline. Engaging with potential candidates early on and maintaining connections can prove beneficial when seeking high-quality tech talent in the future.
TurnKey’s boots-on-the-ground presence along with decades of experience building and scaling teams, mitigates against most of the cons people typically associate with offshore development (lack of transparency and high churn), while offering most of the pros (similar if not better quality of talent than in the US at a lower cost). That’s made a huge difference for us.
High-quality tech talent often seeks opportunities for career growth and skill development. Demonstrate your commitment to employee growth by offering mentorship programs, access to training resources, and clear paths for advancement within the organization. Tech professionals are more likely to be attracted to companies that invest in their personal and professional growth.
And now that you know what to consider in your candidates, let’s look at the places where you should look for them.
Want to Build an Amazing Software Development Team That is Built Entirely Around You?
While product owners might prefer a personalized approach when hiring technical personnel, it’s typically more advantageous for a business to leverage the expertise of professionals in this domain, such as agencies like TurnKey. However, for gauging the market trends, the following platforms can be used for recruitment:
By utilizing these best sourcing channels, categorized according to their reach and relevance, you can significantly enhance your software development candidate pool and identify the best fit for your team and projects.
Of course, identifying potential talent is just the tip of the iceberg – the next step, arguably just as important, is evaluating these tech candidates appropriately.
TurnKey Knows the ‘Where’ and ‘How’ to Hire Top Tech Talent for Your Business Needs.
To ensure a successful evaluation process and avoid hiring the wrong person for your company, it’s crucial to have access to all the necessary information. To help you optimize your time and process, I’m sharing the steps of TurnKey’s robust screening protocols, you’re welcome.
By following these eight steps, recruiters can identify high-quality software development candidates who will contribute positively to the team and drive the company’s success. Now let’s talk about the actual interview process in more detail.
When interviewing tech professionals, it’s essential to ask a mix of technical and behavioral questions to assess their skills, problem-solving abilities, and cultural fit. To make sure you had the best of the best questions, I asked our hiring specialist, who has worked in this industry for more than 10 years, to share her observations and most popular questions. This list of suggested interview questions and ideas will help you gauge a candidate’s suitability for the role:
By incorporating these interview questions into your tech professional hiring process, you can gain a comprehensive understanding of a candidate’s technical expertise, problem-solving skills, work approach, and cultural alignment, helping you make well-informed hiring decisions.
At TurnKey, we love to over-deliver, so I’m pulling out all the stops in this guide and jam-packed this last bonus section with TurnKey recruiting tips.
At TurnKey, we know that effective recruiting goes beyond simply finding the right candidate; it also involves ensuring a smooth and successful hiring process for both companies and candidates. By aligning companies and tech professionals, valuable time and resources are saved.
Our services eliminate the challenges commonly faced by traditional candidate sourcing channels, such as time-consuming processes and a lack of qualified candidates. We offer pre-screened and vetted remote tech professionals, streamlining the recruitment journey. The best part is that our company is based in the heart of the San Francisco Bay Area, so you can call during your regular office hours or just stop by in person for coffee.
We've hired full-time software engineers through TurnKey. To date, not a single engineer has left our contract/arrangement...We've worked with several USA-based firms, and none has matched the speed and quality of candidates from TurnKey.
Here is a glimpse at how our perfect hiring path fits together:
During the kickoff meeting, both parties come together to outline their vision of a successful hire. The client can express their expectations, specifying the necessary skills for the position. By understanding each other’s needs, the process of matching candidates with suitable roles begins. The ultimate objective is to identify a perfect fit that fulfills the distinct requirements of both the employer and the candidate, leading to a successful and satisfying partnership.
Description Approval is an emerging and increasingly popular method in the recruitment process. With this approach, employers are required to provide a comprehensive job description before initiating the candidate search. By doing so, any discrepancies are eliminated, ensuring everyone involved is on the same page during the interviewing process. This not only saves valuable time but also prevents potential awkward conversations later on. Thanks to Description Approval, we can now identify the ideal candidate more efficiently than ever before, streamlining the hiring process for a successful match.
While having a large talent pool is advantageous, sifting through numerous resumes and applications can be overwhelming. Enter the search phase of developer recruitment! It’s all about strategic searching, using relevant keywords to yield precise results. Understanding the significance of aligning a candidate’s experience with the specific job role is key to finding the perfect match amidst the sea of applications. Through this process, we ensure we identify the right individuals for success, making the recruitment journey more efficient and effective.
Screening serves as the initial step to filter and identify resumes that align with the recruitment process. Without it, companies would have to evaluate every applicant, regardless of their suitability for the job, which can significantly slow down the hiring process. During the screening phase, we carefully assess resumes and compile a shortlist of candidates who show potential for being an excellent fit for the specific role. This allows us to streamline the selection process, focusing on the most promising candidates and expediting the journey towards finding the right match.
The resume review phase in the recruitment process provides recruiters with a concise overview of developers and their professional backgrounds. It resembles a speed-dating session, where candidates’ qualifications meet the employer’s requirements, giving recruiters a quick glimpse of potential matches.
In this phase, we assess a candidate’s communication skills and align them with relevant job openings to determine if they warrant further interviews. By adopting a pre-sell approach to interviewing, recruiters efficiently filter applicants, identifying viable candidates while granting applicants the opportunity to showcase their skills and assess if the position aligns with their career goals.
The technical interview for developers holds immense significance as it verifies the candidate’s claimed skillset. Our interviews encompass essential topics such as scalability, storage solutions, SQL queries, and databases, evaluating candidates’ hard skills thoroughly. Recognizing the paramount importance of technical interviews in the hiring process, we select only top specialists with substantial experience in the specific field to conduct these assessments. By doing so, we ensure the utmost accuracy and reliability in validating candidates’ technical proficiency.
A culture interview plays a pivotal role in a successful hiring and onboarding process, going beyond a simple Q&A. It provides candidates with an excellent opportunity to showcase their alignment with the organizational culture and team dynamics.
Through meaningful conversations about the company’s values and their influence on daily job duties, candidates gain valuable insights to ensure they genuinely resonate with the organization. Simultaneously, this approach allows recruitment specialists to identify individuals with the right skills, abilities, and attitude, ensuring a perfect fit both culturally and in terms of performance.
By conducting thorough culture interviews, we guarantee that the selected candidates not only integrate seamlessly into the company’s culture but also excel in their roles, ultimately contributing to the organization’s success.
Our goal at TurnKey is to ensure that we find the perfect-match developers for our clients. That's why our hiring process is robust and comprehensive, designed to evaluate technical and soft skills, cultural fit, and long-term potential. We leave no stone unturned in identifying the best talent for our clients, and it shows in the quality of developers we hire.
Candidate feedback is a vital process in the hiring of new staff members, offering a 360-degree understanding to make informed decisions. It uncovers valuable insights like enthusiasm, attitude towards colleagues, and eagerness to learn, which might not be apparent during interviews or applications.
The job offer stage is the coveted prize at the end of the journey. After successfully navigating the initial application, rigorous interviews, and assessments to ensure a perfect fit, a job offer eagerly awaits in the candidate’s inbox.
Embarking on a new development job can be daunting, even for experienced developers. The abundance of knowledge to absorb can be overwhelming. At TurnKey, we understand this challenge, and that’s where our training comes in. We offer comprehensive, step-by-step onboarding to help developers quickly and confidently acclimate to their new roles, ensuring a smooth transition and a strong foundation for success.
In conclusion, mastering the art of technical recruiting is a crucial endeavor for any organization seeking to build a high-performing tech team. This comprehensive guide has provided valuable insights and proven strategies to attract, evaluate, and hire top tech talent. By prioritizing employer branding, leveraging diverse sourcing channels, and conducting thorough evaluations, companies can identify candidates who possess the right technical skills, problem-solving abilities, and cultural fit.
Additionally, embracing innovative approaches such as offshoring with partners like TurnKey can streamline the recruitment process and overcome challenges like skills gaps and compliance requirements. Furthermore, recognizing the significance of employee development and offering growth opportunities can foster high retention levels that surpass industry averages, ultimately nurturing a thriving tech workforce. Additionally, subscribe to our LinkedIn where my colleagues and I write a lot of useful content about tech recruiting.
TurnKey is the Most Trusted Name in Offshore Software Development in the Bay Area. We’ll Bend Over Backwards to Make You Successful!
To attract top tech talent, focus on building a strong employer brand that showcases your company's culture, values, and commitment to employee growth. Offer competitive compensation packages, provide challenging and innovative projects, and emphasize professional development opportunities.
Some effective sourcing channels for software development candidates include online job platforms like LinkedIn and Indeed, tech-specific job boards like Stack Overflow Jobs and GitHub Jobs, employee referrals and networks, tech conferences and meetups, and tech-specific recruiting agencies.
Conduct a thorough technical interview by evaluating candidates' hard skills in areas like scalability, storage solutions, SQL queries, and databases. Select experienced specialists to conduct these assessments to validate candidates' claimed skillsets accurately.
TurnKey Staffing provides information for general guidance only and does not offer legal, tax, or accounting advice. We encourage you to consult with professional advisors before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your business or legal rights.
Tailor made solutions built around your needs
Get handpicked, hyper talented developers that are always a perfect fit.
The Prompt has been copied to your clipboard. Click one of the buttons below to open a new window where you can paste the prompt (Ctrl+V/⌘+V) and get a response.
Or you can chat with a live expert by visiting our contact page.
Please rate this article to help our team improve our content.
Here are recent articles about other exciting tech topics!
The Economics of Offshore Staffing: the Cost-Benefit Analysis for Tech Companies
How to Identify Top Offshore Tech Talent?
How to Improve Tech Recruiting Costs for Startups
Offshoring to Poland: An Excellent Ecosystem for Tech Businesses