If your business often needs to hire tech talent for open positions, you might find yourself rushing through the hiring process or feeling like you’re starting from square one for every role. In either of these cases, you could benefit from developing a tech talent pipeline.
Let’s take a look at the different reasons for building a talent pipeline, where to look for potential candidates, and how to turn your business into an attractive destination for top tech prospects.
What is a tech talent pipeline?
A tech talent pipeline can refer to one of two things and both can be leveraged in your search for future job candidates:
- An industry partnership with cities or tech sectors that deliver quality talent to quality jobs.
- A pool of tech talent that a business has developed and engaged with in the past, for the purposes of filling future job openings with known candidates.
How businesses can benefit from the tech talent pipeline
By building out a tech talent pipeline for your own business, you can improve not only the quality of your candidate pool but also the recruitment process overall—pivoting your business from the position of reactive hiring to proactive hiring. There are multiple ways in which you’ll benefit:
Draw from a reliable mass of candidates when hiring
One of the greatest benefits of using a talent pipeline is access to high-quality talent. Having already pre-vetted many of your candidates, the entire hiring process becomes much easier.
When a job opens up, you can simply pick up with the candidates who you feel best fit your job description and know that you’ve already done most of your homework on them.
Rely less on timing and blind luck to find the right candidate
The problem with sourcing active candidates as you have a hiring need is that you only get a shot at hiring whoever’s available. This means that timing largely dictates who you’re able to hire.
With a pipeline, on the other hand, you’re able to source not only active job seekers, but passive talent that may become available in the future.
Hire faster, as candidates are already familiar with your brand
When it comes time to hire from your tech talent pipeline, you can easily pick up where your last conversations left off. As candidates are already familiar with you and your brand, you don’t need to introduce yourself or provide an overview of your business.
The time you save by not having to source, screen, and inform candidates allows you to streamline the entire hiring process.
Proactively prepare for future hiring needs
Although you may have a rough idea of how often you need to hire new employees, you can’t always anticipate when your next position is going to be vacated. It could be that multiple positions open up during a busy season and you don’t have time to source new candidates.
By proactively building a tech talent pipeline in advance, you can be fully prepared to hire quickly.
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Where do you find tech talent?
You may be ready to start filling your tech talent pipeline, but where do you look?
There are all sorts of pipeline sourcing strategies that include engaging prospects and potential candidates through job boards, career sites, and social media networks. Additionally, you might consider engaging candidates from tech talent networks in various cities and schools, including the following:
- New York City, NY
- Austin, TX
- San Jose, CA
- San Francisco, CA
- Raleigh, NC
- Chicago, IL
How to hire from the tech talent pipeline
Filling your tech talent pipeline with candidates doesn’t guarantee successful hires down the road. To get the most out of your pipeline, you’ll need to make sure you’re filling it with not just any candidates—the right candidates.
Complete the following steps as you develop your tech talent pipeline:
Clearly articulate your target
Filling your pipeline with relevant candidates begins with identifying the type of prospect you’ll need to target. Sit down with your team and have a discussion about the qualities your business is most likely to need in future hires.
Gaining multiple perspectives will help you pin down the sort of hire you should be targeting for your pipeline.
Build a candidate persona
With some important details about your target prospect in mind, it’s time to flesh out a candidate persona.
This semi-fictional representation of your ideal hire should feature everything you want from future hires—from requirements to skills to attributes to the personality types that will best fit your company culture.
Fill your pipeline with prospects that match the persona
After completing your candidate persona, you can start to engage prospects and build relationships with potential candidates. As you come across prospects that line up with your candidate persona, enter them into your tech talent pipeline.
How recruiters can help you draw new tech talent
If you already find the hiring process to be difficult, let alone the challenge of filling out a pipeline, you should strongly consider partnering with a recruiting agency. These firms can support your business in the following ways:
They can engage candidates in all career phases
Recruiters can engage tech candidates throughout all career stages, from recent college graduates to seasoned professionals with years of industry experience. Filling your tech talent pipeline with both talent and experience will provide greater options for a variety of future roles.
They already have a reputable pool of top tech talent ready
As recruiters engage in relationship-centric recruiting, they already have access to a large pool of top tech talent through their own networks. Hiring the services of a recruiter will allow you to immediately tap into this pool of prospects for your pipeline.
They can provide high-quality referrals through expert networks
Through these same networks, recruiters can leverage existing relationships with top industry professionals to find high-quality referrals for your pipeline. Hunt Club, for example, offers a pipeline service that delivers a pipeline of pre-vetted candidates, equipping you to meet immediate hiring needs and power future hiring.
Make yourself desirable as a tech talent destination
Positioning your company as a destination that can attract tech talent begins the moment you first engage new prospects. You’ll want to make sure you have the following in place if you hope to win over pipeline candidates down the road:
Invest in new technology
Like any candidate, the tech candidate wants to work with the best gear and the latest technology. This allows tech employees to perform daily functions, be as efficient as possible, and enjoy coming to work. Particularly if you’re a non-tech company hiring for a tech position, investing in new technology will give you a much-needed advantage.
Establish a strong presence in the tech industry
Growing your brand and developing a strong presence in the tech industry will naturally cause more candidates to gravitate to your business. Name recognition is important and a positive reputation is even more crucial.
Make sure your recruitment strategy is innovative and modern
Just as tech prospects want to know that you’ve invested in new technology, they want to know that your recruitment strategy is innovative and modern.
Using automation, artificial intelligence (AI), candidate management systems, and other software as part of your recruitment strategy will go a long way towards convincing tech prospects that your business isn’t afraid to embrace technology.
Don’t limit yourself by geographical borders
If you want to attract the best possible tech candidates, don’t limit your job opportunities to candidates who either live nearby or would be willing to relocate.
Offering remote opportunities through digital interviews will allow you to widen your talent pool in tech, get higher-quality candidates into your pipeline, and give top candidates an opportunity they might not find elsewhere.
Make sure you’re fully prepared for your future hire needs
Many companies struggle to manage and plan for future hiring needs, largely because they have too much on their plates or lack the expertise and experience to make great hires quickly.
If you’re unable to develop your tech talent pipeline because of other business demands, consider teaming up with a professional recruiting firm like Hunt Club.
Prepare for future hiring with a pipeline of top tech candidates
