Becoming a Technical Recruiter: 4 Key Traits For The Win

Few people realize it, but in today’s era where technical talent is always in-demand, technical recruiters are the ones who bridge the gap between common folk and tech companies. As good as it sounds, it’s not always a walk in the park since, as a recruiter, you need to know their language well to identify promising candidates, and understand their strengths, while constantly updating yourself with new technologies that can be a handful if you aren’t a tech-savvy yourself. Because it’s no secret that it takes thorough research to find suitable candidates, something that’s your homefront; and while there may be a few ways of getting their attention like cold emails, networking – in the end, it all depends on your foresight to gauge the best candidates for hire. 

If you’re wondering, a technical recruiter is an HR personnel whose specialization lies in discovering suitable professionals for equally challenging IT roles that need deep technical understanding. Their value to any IT enterprise exceeds their reputation, so much so that sometimes fast-scaling tech companies rely on third-party recruitment offices to access the sought-after expertise of experienced tech recruiters. That said, how do you become a successful tech recruiter in the first place? Do you need a tech background to do so effectively, or is it a myth? This article discusses the perceived challenges and bunk myths of technical recruiting and takes a practical approach to build a thriving career. 

#1 Trait: An Acquired Taste for the Tech Industry

Ask anyone who has looked up recruitment jobs at some point in their lives; they’ll tell you that the golden rule to effective recruiting is having loads of interest in the field. Recruitment is synonymous with understanding who your candidates are (and, more importantly, what they want) for any industry. Given the lightning-fast speed of evolution of the IT industry every single day, if you’re going to be in the know, you have to learn about it – which would need genuine, unfazed interest to stay on course. That would mean:

• Getting more than just familiar with technologies you’re hiring for
• Knowing the timeline of frameworks – what’s hot and in demand, what’s not, and basic tech literacy. This includes learning to understand your Python from JAVA, PHP from C++, etc. 
• Required skill level for each framework, including the latest ones. You don’t want to be caught off-guard by asking for 5+ years of experience in FastAPI when it was created in 2018
• Experience the world of technical professionals up, close, and personal, understanding their day-to-day work, their strengths, and breaking points
• Thorough in technical jargon, tools, and other essentials in the tech you’re currently hiring.

The above points may have partly answered your question if you need a technical background to become a technical recruiter someday. In rare cases, you’d see developers becoming recruiters, but recruiters having a technical background is an added advantage that gets you in the sweet spot of getting hired by tech enterprises with large talent pools. Most sought-after tech recruiters come from various educational backgrounds like business, HR, psychology, business administration, etc.    

#2 Trait: HR Recruiter Jobs Come With Massive Competition—So You’ve Got to Have it!

It’s no secret that recruitment is a competitive industry, especially today when there’s a dearth of technical talent worldwide, and seasoned candidates are in the highest demand. Such challenges will need you to go the extra mile as a tech recruiter, paving new ways to build your solid game of networking channels, researching your pursued candidates – researching their likes and dislikes, optimizing your interview and hiring process into a more humane, positive, transparent for the maximum retention. 

The Recruitment Funnel. Credits: Devskiller

Gone are the days when recruitment and marketing were different entities; today, they’re the same, commonly known as employer branding. Relying on analytical data, evaluating and optimizing your recruitment funnels at each stage on the parameters of quality of hire, cost per hire, and time to hire, collecting interviewee feedback, and reading them between the lines will give you a competitive edge over others. 

#3 Trait: Really Keen Attention to the Job Description and Details

Being inattentive to details is a mistake that can be costly for a recruiter’s career. Generally, job descriptions are perceived to be an overview of the best-desired profile for any opportunity, but a true tech recruiter will tell you that’s the least. For hiring developers or other technical talents, you need to realize their vast demand in today’s market. That means, if you’re seeking to hire top talent, you need to play on their terms, not just yours, giving them enough bread crumbs about company benefits, workplace culture, perks, etc. right in the job description that may get them rethinking their current serving position at their present employer or even other offers they’re considering. The key here is taking the time to write careful, detailed job descriptions, being active in drafting thought-out replies to their emails, getting your facts straight in answering each of their possible queries – such as who they’ll be reporting to, salary structure, etc.- is just the way to go. 

#4 Trait: Every day is Learning on the Job, and You Enjoy Learning

For a dynamic industry such as technology, no matter how many years of experience you may have to your name, you’d still have to be willing to learn new things every day and brainstorm new ways of getting things done. You’d also realize that if you’re doing everything correctly, you may come across unfamiliar tech terms or have new queries a lot more than usual. And it’s a good thing to ask meaningful questions when you’re looking to make an adequate placement. However, it may not always be feasible for you to get your queries resolved right away. In such circumstances, online communities like Stack Overflow, The Recruitment Network, etc., are great places to ask questions you’re too afraid to ask in person. It may also mean taking courses that can refine your skillsets-both technical and non-technical, make you more inclined with the recruitment training scenario by sharpening your negotiating abilities, having better responses with candidates, and even getting you adept in intelligent recruitment tools. In the end, the more open you’re to sharing your learning experiences and taking from others’ experiences, the more clearly you’ll be able to see from new perspectives. 

Key Takeaways

Technical recruitment is no different from recruiting in any other industry, even when the demand for tech talent is constantly rising. It sure has its jargon, but so does healthcare, automobile, or any other industry. The difference lies in how you pursue top professionals, keep building your knowledge base on the side and stay ahead of the game. One of the ways to know how the top recruiters in the field are getting there you can follow them across social media, study industry reports, and stay creative. If you’re a corporate recruiter, one of the many things you also need to be thorough in includes the recruitment process in your organization. Seldom thought is given to the fact that a tech recruiter in an organization is also a team player, which may lead to wasting a lot of time, effort, and finances when not utilized to the fullest. For any superstar tech recruiter in the making, the real differentiator is to think from the candidate’s mind at all times. So, how do you measure up?

If you’re a recruiter seeking promising new frontiers, we’d suggest the Page Group. One of the world’s most renowned specialist recruitment consultancies, they are currently on the lookout for a recruiter in Gurgaon with expertise in .NET, ASP.net, and Java tech-based hiring. You can also check out FCS Software Solutions in New Delhi, which is also hiring IT recruiters for their opening in Delhi, on LinkedIn. Else, if you’d like to keep to the IT domain and look for tech recruiter jobs, we’d suggest CodeClouds. They’re a fast-growing team of 600+ experts worldwide and have been in the industry for more than a decade. The choice is yours – happy recruiting!