4 Mistakes Recruiters Make When Hiring Tech Specialists

Recruiting tech talent is difficult and time-consuming, but finding talent with a limited budget can be even harder. If you need to hire an engineer, or if you are looking to build an engineering team, there are certain hiring mistakes to avoid. This article summarizes these four mistakes to know where to look and what questions to ask.

1. Looking for a Candidate with a Complicated Skillset

You might be tempted to hire a person with vast experience, who can work independently and solve any problem, but this is not a good idea. Contrary to the belief of many recruiters, it can be hard to stumble upon a candidate who's a Java Developer with iOS experience and is an expert in network system development at the same time. 

Simply put, no single candidate can possibly possess all the complicated skillset you need. Instead of looking for someone overqualified, it's better to look for someone talented and can quickly learn new things and then train them to increase their depth of expertise.

2. Ignoring Testing Procedures

There might already be a chance that the person is unsuitable for the job. But you still need to check out the person's coding skills before recruiting them.

As difficult as this may sound, limiting the time wasted interviewing candidates and eliminating subpar candidates is necessary. You can do this by conducting programming tests and technical interviews. These are essentially the same as regular interviews but focus on the candidate's coding skills.

The best way to make sure you are interviewing the right person is to have a clear set of questions to ask and a coding test. Questions to ask should prepare the candidate to answer tricky problems they might face in the future when they are hired. You can also use a technical test to assess programming skills.

3. Being Passive in the Hiring Process

Many managers often send out the job description and wait for candidates to come to them. But this is an ineffective way to find and recruit candidates. You should treat the hiring process like any other business process and strive to make it efficient. You can use different methods to find candidates, including professional and social networks, job sites, direct contact with employees, and referrals.

Instead, you should try to find the right candidates using methods such as posting ads on websites, attending job fairs, and using social media. It's good to encourage your existing employees to spread the word that your company is hiring. You can also search for candidates in professional communities.

4. Attempting to Hire Tech Talents for Less

It's a good idea to be mindful of a company's financial situation, but limiting the talent budget while hiring the best is not the solution. If you want to get the best, you must be ready to pay for it.

Money is the most convincing argument to convince a candidate to leave their company and join yours. Remember that they are selling their knowledge and skills, and if they're the best at something, it will come at a higher price.

Money isn't everything, but it does matter. You need to see that your company can keep up with their salary, and also if you offer them a flexible work schedule, this will be crucial.

Conclusion

Hiring engineers can be hard and time-consuming, but it can be even harder to find talent when unsure what not to do. There are many other hiring mistakes, but these are the most common ones. To find the right candidate and successfully recruit them, you must avoid these ones.

Kandio is a skill assessment platform that serves as a strategic tool for evaluating the technological knowledge of third parties, partners, suppliers and candidates. We empower any company to leverage the Silicon Valley FAANG process through an easy-to-use platform to assess and hire great talent with a few clicks. Are you also struggling to find great employees? Or have you ever been hiring a person great on the surface, only to regret it later due to lacking ability? Kandio can help. Test your candidates before hiring today!