5 Keys to Attracting Technical Talent

Be attractive & don't be unattractive.

A popular Internet saying and also a useful mandate when it comes to getting talent acquisition right at any organization.

The most common mistake businesses make when hiring is forgetting they have to be attractive businesses in the first place.

Unfortunately, most businesses don’t know the key factors that contribute to a positive perception in the talent markets.

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Here's a rundown of the 5 most important factors that build attraction:

1. Business Performance

Too often companies want A and B players but don’t have A & B performance. Why would a great technologist join a company where they won’t consistently grow, get market rates or make an impact? This issue can’t be fixed overnight of course; however, the company should have a plan.

Trying to obfuscate things doesn’t work — in the end everyone sees the true picture fairly quickly. As long as you have a growth plan most people are quite understanding. But you need to eventually have A & B levels of business performance to consistently recruit and retain A & B players.

2. Online Presence

It’s staggering how many companies get this wrong when it’s so, so easy to get right. Your corporate website, LinkedIn, Glassdoor and social media presence on Twitter and Facebook are often the first stop for candidates when they hear about your company.

And first impressions count!

Unfortunately, these accounts & sites are typically poorly maintained by most organizations. For example, you see so many spelling errors on LinkedIn profiles and corporate landing pages! For less than $200K — $250K most companies can easily improve their online presence across multiple platforms in terms of both content and look & feel.

3. First Contact with Your Recruiter

If the first person from your company to speak with a candidate is a good communicator, personable, and can frame the role well, the likelihood of securing high quality talent jumps dramatically higher. Too often companies put inexperienced recruiters in front of candidates or individuals, and they don’t know how to message the company or role well.

This really hurts the chances of attracting an A-talent. Make sure your technical recruiters look and act the part of sophisticated attractors to the business. This one is crucial.

4. Modern Technologies

If your company uses outdated technologies, they probably won’t be able to hold on to good engineers for very long. Companies must always have a roadmap for technological evolution, even if that process is slow. As long as the business is chipping away at it that’s what counts.

What really hampers the ability to recruit and retain is telling technologists they will be working on a 20-year-old tech stack with no end in sight. No A-player wants to be a part of that. Most want to innovate with new tech — at least a little bit.

5. Your Industry Matters

Although technologists are often more interested in specific kinds of problems to solve, the industry your company operates in nevertheless plays a non-trivial role in attracting them. Of course, not all industries are created equally, although businesses forget this. AI, Crypto and social media are popular, for example. While agriculture and hospitality are not as well known.

Many companies mistakenly assume they are part of a ‘hot’ industry. The reality is that 90% of business anywhere in the world are not in a ‘hot’ vertical. That means you have extra work to do in terms of framing and messaging the uniqueness & impact of your industry.

Closing Thoughts

Attracting top-shelf talent comes down to details. Things like your company’s online presence and having the right person in place for the initial interview are easy. Others take more effort like ensuring all of the interviewers have a consistent and thoughtful way to describe the tech stack and the company.

Doing a couple of these things will improve your ability to land great talent. Doing all of them can take your team to the next level.

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