How to design your recruitment strategy and job description when hiring IT professionals
I've been in the business of recruiting IT professionals for the past four years and I've never met such an interesting, intelligent and quirky bunch of people in my life. Taking this into account, I strongly feel that we need to consider the uniqueness of IT professionals in our recruitment strategy when we write job descriptions as well as the way we interview these people. Many IT professionals change jobs quite frequently as they constantly look for new challenges. These new challenges need to be highlighted in the job descriptions you write.
4 Ways to get a software developer's attention in a job description
1. Software developers aren't wordy people and many prefer their virtual friends to their colleagues so they aren't always big into spoken communication. This means you need to keep your job descriptions concise and always include any new languages or software that these guys may be exposed to, even if it is in its beta version.
2. Mention any exciting companies you're working with/consulting to. IT professionals like to work with well-known companies as it looks good on their CVs
3. Highlight who your technology partners are, especially if they're rare and you're their only partner in South Africa.
4. Don't give too much information away in your description: you're just looking to 'hook' suitable candidates at this point. Some of the best, most creative job descriptions that I have seem have been written entirely in code so only experienced developers can read them and apply!
Check which candidates are suitable
I always encourage our technical IT candidates to attach a skills matrix to their CVs. Here, they'll indicate which programmes and/or languages they've worked with in the past and they'll also give themselves a rating out of 5. This makes it very easy for your HR consultant to sift through the candidates' documentation as they can see very quickly if these hopefuls fit the description from an experience perspective, or not.
The way that we interview IT professionals is also very different as it's wise to include a test of sorts. Developers can do a simple C# test, for example:
- There are several websites which offer this service, for a fee, or
- You could get one of your senior developers to devise a quick in-house test.
You can also give IT business analysts and IT project manager can also be given a written test where they could look at a case study and answer questions about how they'd:
- Approach the 'problem',
- Structure their documentation, or
- Project plan accordingly.
9 Key questions to ask an IT professional in a job interview
1. What was the best project you've ever worked on and why? What role did you perform on this project?
2. How do you keep up to date with technical developments?
3. What languages have you programmed in? Which was your favourite and why?
4. What technical websites, or thought leaders, do you follow?
5. Describe a time that the original design was no longer the best design to use and it had to be adjusted
6. What is the most innovative thing you've done in the 'IT space' and what impact has it had?
7. How do you troubleshoot IT issues?
8. What is the biggest IT challenge you have faced and how did you solve it?
9. Give an example of where you had to apply your technical knowledge in a practical IT way
As you can see, when you devise your recruitment strategy looking for IT professionals keep in mind that these individuals need to be attracted and interviewed differently to other candidates.
