How to overcome the difficulties of recruiting IT professionals

The increasingly evident weight of digital transformation within organisations and their fast-growing commitment to technological development entails a series of challenges for leaders: IT recruitment, the process of attracting and retaining talent, is one of them — and, maybe, one of the most difficult to surpass.

According to a Manpowergroup's Talent Storage Report, 54% of companies worldwide, and 57% in Portugal, are reporting difficulties in attracting and retaining talent. This is, for sure, “the highest percentage in the last decade”, also says the same study.

In fact, nowadays, we know that demand exceeds available technology talent, and IT candidates with good technical skills choose between several offers that are attractive and difficult to reject.

Despite all of this, 72% of global businesses are still planning ambitious expansions into new markets, supported by major investments in digital technologies. That means some new hiring considerations.

So, which are the main barriers in this process of recruiting and selecting IT professionals? The same “The Equinix 2022 Global Tech Trends Survey” points out that many people apply for jobs for which they do not have specific skills (36% in Portugal). And this may become one more difficulty for business managers to overcome when it is time to recruit.

A partner may help

Having this scenario in mind, it is now important to understand why companies are facing such problems in hiring new team members and how they can manage to get through all of that.

So why don’t you go for an IT partner that may help manage all of those problems and is ready to:

• Making the recruitment process much more agile: In fact, an agile and specialised process can make all the difference as it allows a more in-depth and accurate selection of candidates. Agile recruiting aims to make recruitment more responsive to the needs of the business and the overall process less risky.

• Greater ability to assess the experience and skills of a specialised candidate: Competence is described as the combination of training, skills, experience, and knowledge that a person has and their ability to apply them to perform a task safely. With the right partner, it becomes easier for organisations to identify whether the professional is competent for a given project (for example, the HR department does not have the tools or know-how to assess whether a network engineer is competent for a particular job), and go forward, or not, with the recruitment process.

• Enhances growth opportunities: Recruiting is your core business? Is this what your company does? Well, maybe not, so it is always essential to have the support of a partner for recruitment processes. This way, you will have more free time to dedicate to creative, diversified, and innovative projects in the business area where you move, so organisation can reach better results.

• Higher level of skills to manage the mixing between the company's organisational culture and the candidate's profile: When recruiting, companies have some expectations about the candidates’ skills they will talk to, which is even more difficult when it comes to a highly specialised professional. So, with a specific partner for this area, it is possible to manage greater reconciliation between the company's expectations and the candidates’ expectations rather than go for a direct contract.

All in all

That being said, it is for sure quite crucial for companies to bet on a specialised partner in recruiting IT professionals since they have the necessary soft and hard skills to be able to align the objectives and culture of the organisation with the expectations and career plans of the candidates. To learn more about recruitment area and tech talent, have a look at some of the books mentioned on this page.