Speaking at events provides great brand exposure, it ... networking is a cost efficient way to build your kudos ... Swit
Helping Startups Find Tech Talent
UKTN IN ASSOCIATION WITH
CONTENTS BUILDING YOUR EMPLOYER BRAND..............................................................3 HUNTING DOWN THE TECHIES...........................................................................5 TOP TOOLS FOR UNCOVERING HIDDEN TALENT...................................6 HOW TO COMPETE WITH ESTABLISHED BUSINESSES......................9 CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................9
HELPING STARTUPS FIND TECH TALENT Unemployment within the technology sector is at an all-time low, which means skilled tech professionals are in extremely high demand. With this in mind, finding the best ways to engage this talent pool is key for any company looking to make new hires.
What’s actually required is a multi-channel approach, with recruiters using each social media channel and other, more traditional, forms of contact such as email, to attract the attention of prospective candidates.
Tech professionals are extremely active on social media and recruiters need to recognise this and adapt their approach as appropriate.
This guide will help you establish exactly how to uncover hidden tech talent, enabling your company to grow at pace.
BUILDING YOUR EMPLOYER BRAND It’s important for all companies to take a long hard look at their brand before going out to the market to acquire fresh talent. The market perception of your brand is vitally important, especially as the tech community can be very insular. Here are some thoughts on how to build your brand on a budget.
1. Speak at events Speaking at events provides great brand exposure, it positions you and your business as a market leader and gives you an opportunity to share your insight and expertise. It also enables you to meet potential employees, so you will be on their radars as and when they are in the market for a new opportunity. When you are preparing to speak at an event, transform your notes into social posts or an article that you can publish on your company blog. You can amplify the content on social media during and after the event, this can act as a great PR vehicle. Remember to jump on the event’s hashtag, mentioning it in any tweets or other social posts relating to your presentation or associated blog post. After an event, ask the organisers whether they have any video footage of your presentation, if so, get hold of that file and share away, no need to edit, the more authenticity the better chance of it landing. 3
2. Have an opinion on industry issues The tech industry is forever making headlines, and for all sorts of different reasons. Issues around company culture, workers’ rights and industry trends are common talking points, so make sure you have an opinion on such areas and make that opinion known. The idea is to show potential employees that you really get the industry – you know what the current issues are and you’re engaged in the discussions around these. If you are passionate about the space in which you work, this should all come naturally. Tech professionals are overwhelmed with opportunities, so it’s important you cut through the noise. Highlight your company as being somewhere that possesses the values jobseekers want to be associated with.
3. Network profusely Attending workshops, conferences, meetups and regular coffee meetings makes sure your company is represented and visible in the market. It not only makes sure you’re abreast of the latest industry trends, but also presents a great opportunity to meet others involved in the space. The more connections you have, the better. First impressions count and can be long lasting – networking is a cost efficient way to build your kudos in the market.
4. Tell your story Your website is the skin of your business, your shop window. It is your number one opportunity to portray your brand at its best. So make sure your site explains your business, culture and identity. Your website will be the first port of call for those considering a role with you, so invest some time and ensure you create the right impression. The same goes for your social media profile pages – make sure your brand and its message is clear, consistent and up to date.
4
HUNTING DOWN THE TECHIES It’s no secret that unearthing the best tech talent is a tricky business, but it can be done and social and professional networks are a rich hunting ground.
Using social Social media is a great platform for recruiting. Techspecific sites such as Github, Stack Overflow and Dribble are used predominantly to contact and vet candidates, while more general platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are great for sharing content, showing off your brand and promoting jobs to a wide audience. The most common reason employers use LinkedIn is to contact potential candidates, yet when asked where they are most likely to respond to recruiters, 63% of tech professionals said email, whereas just 19% said LinkedIn InMail.
Making your contact count When contacting tech talent, it’s vital you tailor your approach. Tech professionals are instantly turned off by a batch-and-blast mentality. Research each candidate you’re interested in and gain a deeper
How recruiters are using these sites for tech recruiting
understanding of their skills and background. Tailor your message to each of them, perhaps highlighting which specific parts of their experience you think would make them a great fit for the role in question or your company as a whole. Most will be flattered by this well thought out approach and this will increase your chances of getting a positive response.
What makes you reply to a recruiter?
What stops you replying to an employer/recruiter?
5
TOP TOOLS FOR UNCOVERING HIDDEN TALENT Dice, the online career site for the tech community, has a number of great tools giving you access to tech professionals.
Benefits of Open Web for startups: Open Web is an award-winning platform that aggregates data from over 180 social and professional networks, providing you with a single lens on tech professionals. Open Web does all the heavy lifting for you, saving you time and effort. Open Web enables you to understand the passions, interests and hobbies of tech professionals. Get an instant enriched picture of a candidate and understand their suitability for a role. It also provides the ability to craft a tailored message and connect via multiple channels including email and social. Overall Open Web helps speed up your sourcing process.
•
Access to 15 million tech profiles in the UK
•
Profiles enriched with over 300,000 Dice CVs
•
Ability to search across 180 social and professional sites
•
Profiles that show you a candidate’s behaviour across the web
•
Multiple contact points
•
Help with crafting a personalised approach
6
Talent Search
Talent Search is an incredibly efficient way to find tech candidates. It combines Dice’s traditional CV database with millions of profiles from its award winning social recruiting tool Open Web. Talent Search uses intelligent search technology, presenting you with the best-matched candidates in seconds. This tool will improve workflow, providing you with access to active and passive profiles that can all be accessed in one place. It also uses real-time technology to provide a flow of fresh candidates, so you can constantly grow your talent pool.
Relevant search
Save money
Improve workflow
Learn & connect
Grow your talent pools
Benefits of Talent Search for startups: Feature-rich - Integrated candidate profiles
UI and UX enhancement - Speed up your
Switch likelihood indicator - There are over 60
Employer dashboard - Here you can access
combining Open Web and CV Database
signals that determine how likely each candidate is to switch roles, including: engagement on the Dice website, social signals, employment history, time of current job and industry trends. These are things to consider when approaching tech professionals
Social-enriched profiles - 180 social and
professional sites are crawled and indexed to show levels of engagement. 15 million additional profiles show in your search results. Get a full picture of a candidate’s social DNA, helping you to create a meaningful connection
sourcing and qualify top candidates faster
data on your job performance. Tap into Dice candidate data – including resume, contact and skills info
Chrome extension - You can source tech
talent anywhere on the web, with instant access to contact details. This enables you to view a candidate’s social footprint and contact them if they fulfill your desired criteria
New ways to connect - You can connect with
candidates where they are most active across social and professional networks, in addition to email. Enhancing your communication with social information allows you to get better results
7
Lengo Lengo is a hyper-targeted platform that enables you to deliver effective messages to the right audience. Using proprietary data, it targets active tech candidates on Facebook and Twitter.
How it works Benefits of Lengo: Social engagement Social data
Data from hundreds of sources
Connect with candidates via the sites on which they spend the most time
Hyper-targeted
Find candidates with specific skills and experience
Optimised
Multivariate testing to drive best results
Common targeting methods - Location - Keywords
Guaranteed
A minimum of 500 interactions is guaranteed per campaign
Propriety technology & rich CV data - Job title - Skills - Company experience
Hyper-target audience
Matched and served where they are active online
8
HOW TO COMPETE WITH ESTABLISHED BUSINESSES As we all know, there is a shortage of top-quality tech talent in the UK, and big players in the space usually get their hands on the cream of the crop. There are number of things you can do, though, to compete with these established brands and make you stand out to job-seeking tech professionals.
Here are some key examples: Offer a clear career path
Make sure you explain to candidates their potential to advance within your organisation and communicate how your team will support them so that they can successfully progress.
Offer training
Provide training in areas the candidates express an interest in developing. Doing so shows you are invested in your employees and want them to grow as individuals within your company.
Create an enjoyable working environment
Highlight your company culture, explain your values and emphasise any group activities, support networks, etc
Offer perks
Emphasise the company perks that are on offer. These don’t have to be costly, if your company is on a budget, but highlight them nonetheless. It could be free fruit, tea and coffee, or perhaps that you have on-site table tennis and PlayStations, right through to private health insurance and cash bonuses or reward schemes.
CONCLUSION If like so many other companies across the length and breadth of the UK, you’re looking to boost the technical side of your business, there are some important steps you need to take in order to stand out from the crowd. Follow the advice in this guide, though, and you should be on the road to successfully hiring the right tech professionals for your business.
About Dice: Dice is a leading tech career site for the UK and Germany. Dice quickly delivers the opportunities; insights and connections technology professionals and employers need to move forward. uk.dice.com connects employers with relevant active and passive tech professionals. In 2016 Dice launched Global Integrated Search, combining the Dice CV Database with social data extracted from the award winning social recruiting tool Open Web. This created the largest database of active and passive candidates in the UK. Dice currently works with leading companies such as Sky, UBS, EE, Amazon, BAE and many more.
9
UKTN IN ASSOCIATION WITH
