How to Reduce Time to Hire with a Recruitment Agency

ITExpert team27.06.2023

The demand for IT specialists is growing every year. HR managers point out that the competition for tech experts is constantly on the rise. Companies across the world are seeking IT specialists and the competition for talent remains high.

Therefore, the first difficulty is self-evident: there are far fewer experienced candidates with strong IT backgrounds than there is demand for them. According to US Labor statistics, the global talent shortage amounted to 40 million skilled workers worldwide in 2020. By 2030, it is expected to reach 85.2 million. Companies worldwide risk losing $8.4 trillion in revenue because of the lack of skilled tech talent. In this article, we will explore when a recruitment agency will be helpful for your business.

From Helping When the In-House Team Can’t Cope to Closing a Difficult Vacancy: When IT Recruitment Agency is Needed

Recruiting agencies in IT are B2B service companies that help product companies, R&D centers, outsourcing, and outstaffing companies find IT specialists. They can participate in the first stages of the search or accompany the candidate through the entire recruiting process from the first message to the onboarding. We’ve described when they will be most useful for your business.

When your in-house team struggles with finding the right talent

Tech companies in different domains need highly skilled and specialized talent, including UI/UX designers, developers, DevOps engineers, architects, and QA engineers.

For instance, many companies around the world are now looking for experts with multiple shipped products under their belt, which largely corresponds to middle or senior roles. The necessity to combine technical expertise, industry experience, and boosted soft skills makes it challenging to find the right candidates.

Moreover, the intense competition in the IT sector forces companies to constantly upgrade their products and services to compete for attention and revenue. This means they need to adopt emerging technologies. Finding tech professionals with expertise is not an easy task.

Your company may even have a scaling stage within tight deadlines. If you see that your business is close to its next level and need to hire an entire department of IT experts, it is the job for a recruitment agency. We can guarantee high-quality and fast results, as we have all resources for that such as an inhouse team of professionals, access to expert resources, and managing the right tools for finding strong candidates.

For example, we were approached by a company originally from Israel, which had an outsourced team and another, outstaffing one, in Ukraine. After some time, the client decided to separate from the intermediary and independently open an office in Ukraine, hiring his team here. However, he didn’t have enough experience in many organizational nuances, so he contacted an ITExpert for hiring. We hired all the necessary tech specialists while the company was focused on business growth issues.

When your in-house team has limited experience in hiring from new markets

Turning to remote markets where the cost of living is much lower than in the US, UK, Canada, or Switzerland is a great option to fill in tech gaps. For example, Ukraine is a country with a large talent pool of 285,000 IT specialists who perform high-quality software development for companies around the globe. It is home to world-renowned start-ups like Grammarly, Revolut, and Petcube. Last but not least, Ukraine was recognized as the Delivery Destination of the Year by the Global Sourcing Association (GSA) in 2021.

When you experience difficulties with closing a difficult position

No matter if you have an internal recruiting department or not, some positions may be very difficult to close. For example, there might be narrow vacancies and only several specialists in this profile in the country.

Our IT recruiting agency has been helping clients around the world to successfully find developers, QA, DevOps, CTOs for FinTech, E-commerce, Web3, SaaS and PaaS products, Machine Learning, AI, and other areas. Recruiting agencies commonly have a huge network of candidates from various sectors and domains. For instance, our IT recruiting agency has helped fill the vacancies of Pixi developers for the gaming industry, data scientists for computer vision and 3D reconstruction, embedded developers with very specific requirements. For some of these positions, there are only 100–150 specialists in the local candidates market. Recruiting agencies commonly have a huge network of candidates from various industries and domains.

Yet, the lack of experience in recruiting foreign specialists may become a roadblock to building a team. Varying taxation laws, certifications, work visas, and cultural differences are among the top challenges companies may face. Given the particulars of new markets, the hiring process may take much longer than expected, leading to revenue loss.

Now that you understand the challenges that may stand in your way, let’s dive into tips on how to choose the IT recruiting agency that’ll help you with hiring experts with matching values and the right tech expertise.

How to Choose the Best IT Recruiting Agency

CEO at ITExpert Stas Shihov advises:

1. Pay attention to the previous experience of filling similar vacancies.

2. Select several agencies to determine whose experience and approach you are most attracted to in solving recruiting problems.

3. Have a chat with a representative of the agency to make sure that they have an idea about the market, salary ranges, and pitfalls of hiring the specific specialist. The recommendations of a representative will also be useful. For instance, if you need a DevOps Engineer with experience in all clouds, a representative of a good agency will let you know that there are very few such specialists. They will also suggest an alternative way: look for a candidate with experience with one or several clouds, but also a willingness to understand others too.

4. Analyze what questions a recruiting agency representative asks you. It happens that a specialist agrees with everything and does not ask additional questions—this is a red flag.

We at ITExpert always ask questions about the company, the technologies it uses, and the team. We will also find out the company’s plans, the current state of affairs, work schedule, social package, and other details that the candidate may ask us about in the future. In the second stage, our CTO communicates with the client. He finds out the technical details of the vacancy, if necessary, advices on the vacancy and requirements. Next, we compile the ideal candidate profile.

5. Check agency reviews and request agency cases.

6. Check the price for services. After talking with several recruiting agencies, you will understand the average price tag and get the minimum and maximum cost of offers. Extremely cheap services should look suspicious to the client. It is a sign that your vacancies will not be given enough attention and quality services.

It is crucial to understand that searching for IT specialists through an agency requires the client’s attention, too. The bottom line is to allow recruiters from the agency to find a specialist who will work in your team and interact with other team members daily. Accordingly, the client should be involved in the selection process of candidates.

The recruiting team from the agency will analyze the client’s desires, and their relevance to the market, determine how many candidates are available, communicate the results to the client and, if necessary, adjust expectations so that both parties can meet and the hiring is successful and completed in an adequate time frame.

At the same time, the employer should have a:

understanding what kind of specialist he needs;
willingness to be involved in selection processes;
willingness to objectively evaluate candidates at the interview.

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In a Nutshell

Yet, a global talent shortage, competition from different sectors, and rising IT candidate expectations present challenges to companies trying to attract top tech talent.

As an experienced recruiting agency ITExpert can help you find and recruit suitable talents who will share your values and can lead your company to success. Our technical recruiters can help you overcome any hiring challenges and find qualified IT candidates for your team.