7 Things to Consider When Finding Candidates in a New Market

See more details

For many small and medium businesses, the hiring process, in general, can be a bit of a shot in the dark. Interviews can be based on gut decisions, the likability of the candidate, and other subjective takeaways. Hiring decisions like this can backfire extremely poorly, costing your company time and money to fire and rehire. If you don’t properly manage a hiring process well, mistakes will happen, sooner or later.

The potential number of problems in the recruitment process increases when you first start looking for IT specialists in a new talent market. Even if you have an efficient, and built recruitment marketing strategy over the years, when reaching out to a new talent market, it may not cut it. New markets bring new competitors, biases, and questions.

ITExpert’s tech recruiters have shared a checklist for entering a new talent market and hooking top candidates.

1. Research Your New Talent Market

According to CareerBuilder, about 22% of companies have made a bad hire due to insufficient talent intelligence. By being equipped with relevant insights, organizations place themselves in the best possible position to actively compete for highly skilled candidates, particularly where demand is high or quality is hard to find.

Determine the market volume: how many specialists you need are available in a particular country, and how many candidates you can invite for an interview in the near future. Internal conversion statistics will help you with this, but you can also check the number of candidates through LinkedIn’s #OpenToWork feature). Using LinkedIn’s Talent Insights platform, also identify the market’s main hitters, broken out by title, industry, and experience.

2. Evaluate the Main Competitors in the Market

Evaluating employers currently hiring for similar roles will give you a better understanding of where your company falls in terms of desirability compared to the competition. Anticipate what other employers will offer, and be prepared to provide something even more enticing.

According to LinkedIn’s report Market Drivers Since the Start of COVID, flexibility has become the fastest-growing priority for candidates considering a new job. Other top priorities for candidates when considering a new job, in order of importance, are: 

• Work-life balance.
• Compensation and benefits.
• Colleagues and culture.
• Effective management.
• Challenging work. 

An inclusive workplace for people of diverse backgrounds is also important now. 

See more details

3. Check Market Salary Range

Each market varies and could require significantly higher or lower salary thresholds to hook talent. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) recommends conducting a salary review every 18–24 months. In tough and competitive markets, this information should be reviewed more frequently.

4. Find Out the Most Popular Places That Candidates Are Going to Search for Jobs

Source talent in places where your target group hangs out and search for jobs online—it’ll help you to maximize your reach. For instance, you can use Behance for finding creatives, or Github for developers. If you use several job boards for searching for Junior tech candidates and non-tech specialists of different levels, compare the data. It will help to determine where candidates are going and where you spend can be boosted to drive more applicants and decrease in struggling areas.

5. Consider How You Can Attract the Right Candidates

Try to determine how you can differentiate yourselves to attract top specialists in the market? Gather intelligence on the different types of talent in your market, identify their key pains and motivators, create an employer value proposition (EVP), as well as analyze attraction strategies employed by your competitors.

6. Learn More About Local Forms, Services, and Tax Registration

For some companies, it is also important to understand whether it’s possible to work without a local representative office. For example, you can work directly with the 3rd group FOP in Ukraine (what in America is called “sole proprietorship” and in the UK is called “sole trader” is known as “FOP” in Ukraine).

7. Take Into Account Local Communication Features

For example, in the first stages of recruitment in the UK, it’s customary to ask about the current salary, and not about salary expectations for moving to a new job. In Ukraine, it is better to do the opposite.

See more details

What else?

There are universal rules for recruiting candidates that work in any country. Here are the main ones:

• Build the HR brand. A strong brand should be a priority for all businesses striving for success. Effectively communicate your USPs to your target audience by sharpening your brand’s image and positioning in the IT market.
• Think long-term. Worker retention is even more critical in 2022, which means your up-front hiring decisions should look at whether the candidates will adapt to change, whether they have an affinity for learning, whether they train well, etc. Find a quality hire that will grow with your company, and you’ll reduce turnover costs, and add value to the company culture.
• Make the process easy for candidates. Give candidates a simple experience across your company’s career website. Post information about available positions and benefits. Also, reduce the number of interview steps as much as possible. Do not torment candidates with many hours of test tasks—keep in mind you aren’t the only company on the market, and the candidate has plenty to choose from.
• Measure the results. Track the outcomes to define which recruiting channel produces the best candidates at the lowest cost = which sources produce the best results.

Don’t forget about the true trump cards of a good recruiter. They are attentiveness, personal approach, and empathy. And let it be easy for you to search for programmers in any country worldwide!

Don’t have enough time to learn how to put these tips into practice? If you are struggling to attract quality candidates on time, we can help. Get in touch to discuss your business and recruitment goals in more detail.