As a tech recruiter, how can you become a freelancer? In this article, I will give you tips and...
Martin—a Java backend developer—has recently wrote on my Facebook page:
And he's not the only one to dislike recruiters...
I worked as the CTO in my previous company and worked with lots of developers every day.
Based on all the countless discussions with my colleagues over the years, I identified four major reasons why they look down at recruiters.
Watch the video below to learn what you can do to become a recruiter developers LOVE interacting with:
Look, when I was the CTO of a fast-growing TravelTech startup, I hesitated working with external recruiters. The reason was simple: A few minutes after an external technical recruiter approached me, I realized he or she knows nothing about the technical stack, about the technologies and the IT roles I as the hiring manager needed help with.
They only forwarded me CVs of candidates who they received from job boards...
I didn’t see any added value there!
After I interviewed my colleagues, IT friends, developers and other technical leaders, I realized there are these four reasons why do developers dislike working with recruiters in IT:
The Four Reasons
1. Recruiters Have Little Technical Knowledge
For someone who has worked in IT for several years, it's easy to find software developers in professional communities or meetups, talk to them face to face or kick off a casual conversation.
It’s effortless to interview them and assess their skills because they have the right IT vocabulary.
For someone who's transitioning from a non-tech field and lacks this sort of technical knowledge, technical screening is much more challenging. And developers can sense this quickly...
2. Recruiters Don’t Reveal Enough Information
Candidates complain that recruiters have very little information about the position, project, team, company, and the technical stack.
On the other hand, a hiring manager or a CTO can proudly talk about the company, team, project or product. Who doesn't want to know what kind of a peer group he or she will join, right?
Candidates want to know whether the team consists of A-players.
They want to know if technical best-practices have been adopted.
Hence, the more you as a recruiter learn about the company, project, team, and tech stack you learn, the more information you'll be able to pass to the candidate.
3. Recruiters Send Mass Emails
The third complaint I heard from developers was that technical recruiters send too many impersonal mass emails, which is considered quite annoying.
When I'm approaching candidates, I personalize the message despite I use a template – whether it's an InMail or an e-mail.
4. Recruiters Don't Perform Enough Research
The fourth complain I heard was that recruiters don't research candidates before sending them messages.
We've been there and done that... when we're busy and send one message after the other. But let's step into candidate's shoes for a while: they receive so many messages every week!
Next...
If you'd like to find and close more IT candidates, join the Tech Recruitment Academy. We'll help you learn the right IT terminology, absorb the technical vocabulary, and learn the right strategies to attract international IT talents.
Also, every two months, I organize a Live training program for a group of 20 ambitious tech recruiters... who'd like to THRIVE in international recruitment. If you'd like to join the next group, get your ticket for the next Tech Recruitment Program.
