https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/feature/How-to-attract-tech-talent-The-essentials
From the CIO to the front-line recruiter, everyone with a stake in the war for talent should understand how to attract stellar IT and tech teams.
Boosting salaries, offering work-life balance, pursuing passive candidates, developing more informative tech job descriptions, focusing on skills, partnering for diversity and appealing specifically to tech workers are all strategies that can go a long way toward recruiting top talent.
"Money talks," as the saying goes, and, indeed, salary is an important consideration for job seekers.
A full 68% of those looking for employment are seeking an increase in salary and better benefits, according to "Job Seeker Trends 2024," a report published by CompTIA (Computing Technology Industry Association), a certification and training organization headquartered in Downers Grove, Ill.
A significant percentage of those seeking employment -- 25% -- don't consider tech as an option because they think the pay is too low, according to the same report.
In the time of the Great Detachment, work-life balance offers many benefits for both employee and employer. One worth mentioning is its ability to help attract top tech talent.
Forty-two percent of job seekers focus on better work-life and well-being improvements, according to the same CompTIA report. One-third want future employers to offer work-from-home capabilities.
There's an entire group of people who would be great future employees -- they just don't know it yet. Indeed, targeting passive candidates is key to a robust tech talent recruitment strategy.
One way to identify and recruit passive candidates is through an employee referral program. Happy employees can authentically sell the company -- its culture and benefits -- to former colleagues and network associates. Leadership and HR should offer incentives for participating in an employee referral program and market its benefits, particularly the financial rewards employees can reap when the company hires referrals.
And -- as in many areas of recruitment -- AI can help support the search for candidates.
Conventional job descriptions contain information about the employer, as well as the educational and work experience requirements associated with the position in question, but that's not enough to attract tech talent, according to "5 best practices for CIOs to effectively attract and hire top IT talent," a report published by Gartner in February 2023.
While that information is necessary, according to the report, candidates also want to know the following:
In addition to written job descriptions, recruitment marketing should include links to video clips featuring current employees discussing how they use their skills on the job and offer a glimpse into day-to-day interactions with team members.
Focusing on job skills can help companies get ahead in the war for talent.
When recruiting technology professionals, companies should concentrate on the skills that candidates possess over education and certification, according to "HR Rewired: An end-to-end approach to attracting and retaining top tech talent," a report published by McKinsey & Company in June 2023. Tech and HR leaders should collaborate to identify the skills that are most valuable to the organization, and then seek them out among both existing employees and through external channels.
Padding job ads with every desired attribute is counterproductive.
Leaders should zero in on the skills that are mandatory for the job but can also include supplementary qualifications that could be beneficial, according to the "Strategic Cybersecurity Talent Framework," a whitepaper published by the World Economic Forum in April 2024. However, job descriptions should not list skills that have nothing to do with the position since they could discourage otherwise qualified candidates from applying.
Recruiters often turn only to familiar and often homogenous channels for recruitment, such as posting ads only on a few career sites and accepting applications only from computer science program graduates. But there are several reasons to seek more heterogeneous employees. For example, diverse teams are smarter.
Expanding recruitment efforts beyond traditional channels and opening up to, for example, women cybersecurity professionals or military veterans, can expand the talent pipeline.
Marketing the employee value proposition (EVP), or the unique benefits that help recruit and retain employees, is important to attracting workers, in general. But knowing what's attractive to tech candidates is especially critical.
To that point, CIOs and HR leaders should develop one that is specific to technology professionals, according to the Gartner report. This is particularly important for organizations or industries that technologists deem as attractive as high-tech companies. It's important to advertise a willingness to invest in innovation or an agile culture, for example.
Marketing those features can be tricky so preparation is key.
To ensure that recruiters properly communicate the EVP, recruiters should have toolkits specific to screening and interviewing tech candidates, according to the World Economic Forum report.
Carolyn Heinze is a Paris-based freelance writer. She covers several technology and business areas, including HR software and sustainability.
29 May 2025