The tech market is seeing its biggest growth spurt since 2012.
It’s no wonder that you, tech recruiters, are busier than ever. Burnt out? Maybe. Overstretched? Probably. Wishing you could magic up double the amount of hours in the day? Almost certainly.
We’ve put together our top 5 time management tips for tech recruiters, in the hope that they can save you that bit of precious time. If you’re due a caffeine break, grab a cuppa and have a read ☕️
1. Create a target candidate profile
“I don’t want to relocate. I also don’t code beyond Swift and Objective-C. Still, I get offers for jobs in Dearborn, Michigan. Another company wants to hire me as an Android developer. A different company is looking for a mid-career web developer… in Indianapolis.” – Nate Swanner, editor at Dice Insights
Creating a ‘candidate persona’ means outlining the profile of your ideal candidate – and its worth its weight in gold. Not only will it help you develop a definable and clear approach for candidate consideration, it’ll also save you an amazing amount of time. You’ll be able to focus your efforts on the right candidates. You won’t waste time targeting candidates who don’t fit the bill because of fundamental reasons like location or skillset.
Recruiters often resort to casting a wide recruitment net – but this is frustrating and time consuming. By creating a candidate persona, your net will be tossed over more interested fish, saving you time in the long run.
Your candidate persona profile could include information like:
Background: the candidate’s experience, qualifications, etc.
Skills: what skill set are you looking for?
Watering holes: where does the candidate hang out online?
Motivations and goals: what does the candidate value in a role? You need to make sure the candidate’s aspirations are in line with what you can offer as a company.
Personality: what makes your candidate tick? It’s important to take culture fit into account.
Candidate personas make it easier to navigate potential candidates
2. Treat your candidates well
“If you can get to the point where a good chunk of your business is coming from referrals, you’re doing it right.” – Aline Lerner, co-founder & CEO of interviewing.io
It’s all about playing the recruitment long game, Aline Lerner advises. “Treat every engineer you work with like a precious commodity” she says. “Even if they don’t end up finding jobs through you, if you add value, are helpful, give them info they wouldn’t have had otherwise […] they will remember it. They will tell their friends, and they will come back the next time they’re looking.” Lerner highlights the importance of knowing and acting on the value of candidate relationships in tech recruiting – even when your working day seems fit to burst.
Candidates are in high demand. They’re approached left, right and centre by recruiters and companies. Putting in that extra effort might seem like a waste of time now, but it’s a long-term investment.
3. Know your industry and tech lingo like the back of your hand
Simply put, know your stuff. A genuine interest in the industry and understanding the lingo are two of the things that make for a superstar tech recruiter, according to Michelle McSweeney.
As a tech recruiter, if you know the difference between Javascript and Java, what an IDE is and why ‘Machine Learning’ keeps coming up, for example, then you’ll earn brownie points and gain credibility. You’ll do less research and bluffing and save yourself precious time.
4. Manage your emails like a boss
Email management in recruiting is like taming the beast. If they’re not managed correctly, your emails can consume you to the point of complete time management destruction. Doesn’t sound pretty, does it?
With email being the preferred contact method of developers, it’s pretty important to get into a good email management routine so that you are efficiently using your inbox time. Designating specific time slots to tame unread emails, implementing a flagging system and specific follow up email management are all ways in which tech recruiters can stay afloat.
Email management, whether it’s creating, sorting or collating, is an area of your job where, if you’re smart, you could really cut out unbeneficial time.
Cut time on unrewarding communications with good email management
5. Invest in tooling to speed up your processes
Increasing your efficiency on the administrative side – the dark side! – of your tech recruitment role will create time gaps in your day that you can spend on other important tasks. Think email tools, note taking applications, application tracking and analytics, etc. Anything that streamlines a manual aspect of your job will help with time management.
In your recruitment process, for example, an assessment tool – the ultimate tech recruiter’s sidekick – can do a lot of the hard work for you. You can automatically rank candidates based on your skill requirements with hands-on coding tests and save time on technical interviews and manual candidate filtering.
When it comes to face-to-face interviews, Aline Lerner swears by note taking app Evernote:
“For the love of god, don’t take notes in a physical notebook. I did it for a while because I was worried about people hating hearing typing sounds over the phone. Taking notes you can’t search later is dumb.”
Time management for tech recruiters comes down to prioritizing company and candidate relationships, investing your time wisely and playing the long game.
