The tech recruitment industry has undergone significant changes and growth over the last few years. This is due to the rapid development of tech businesses, the increased use of tech solutions by more companies, and the rise of tech startups.
With the tech sector growing at an unprecedented rate, hiring the right team for your business is crucial to staying ahead of the competition. However, tech hiring is a highly dynamic process that requires careful planning and execution, whether conducted by tech giants or emerging startups. Long-term strategic planning, talent forecasting, and competitive recruiting tactics from larger tech companies necessitate implementing key strategies to maintain and grow tech teams.
Here are eight strategies to consider while growing your tech team.
1. Hire Remote Software Developers
Remote tech jobs are becoming increasingly popular in talent acquisition. Though a return to office continues to ripple throughout certain industries in the United States, global tech recruiting trends continue to point towards an increase in hybrid or remote work adoption.
The paradigm shift from in-person to remote work has significantly impacted talent acquisition strategies, with a marked increase in remote work adoption among tech professionals in data science, engineering, and information technology. This shift offers an unprecedented opportunity to tap into global talent pools, transcending geographical limitations to recruit tech professionals with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives.
Engaging remote developers allows companies to swiftly scale their technical capabilities, reduce operational costs associated with physical office spaces, and foster a strong DEI presence in their work environment. It's crucial for companies to leverage digital collaboration tools and develop remote-friendly work policies to fully harness the benefits of remote work.
2. Use a Talent Marketplace
A talent marketplace is characterized as an online platform that connects employers with professionals. These platforms streamline the recruitment process by offering access to an array of pre-vetted developers, engineers, and analysts, enabling companies to fill vacant or new roles efficiently with candidates with the requisite competencies and skills.
Through advanced algorithms, AI components, and keyword prioritization, talent marketplaces offer tailored matches based on specific job requirements and ensure that the relevant and appropriate candidates are identified. Unlike a LinkedIn posting, a platform like Revelo shortens the recruitment cycle and eliminates the need to search through hundreds of resumes, providing companies with qualified tech professionals at a lower cost.
3. Consider Global Candidates
As major companies strive to create diverse tech teams, consider expanding your organization’s candidate search scope by hiring global workers. An unrestrained search allows organizations access to in-demand tech professionals worldwide and helps locate those with unique perspectives, skills, and experiences. Additionally, businesses often benefit from lower labor costs and access to new markets by hiring global tech workers.
However, consider the language and cultural differences when evaluating global tech candidates to ensure they fit into your existing teams. A global search requires a nuanced understanding of cross-cultural communication, legal compliance across jurisdictions and nationalities, and the logistical aspects of managing remote employees.
4. Upskill Employees
One way to ensure a tech team remains engaged and productive is to invest in upskilling and retraining current employees. This involves providing the proper training, top productivity tools, and resources to help them stay ahead of the curve. Some ways to upskill and retrain tech employees include the following:
- Offering online courses
- Providing mentorship programs
- Creating virtual workshops
- Enrolling employees in coding boot camps
- Developing a consistent learning and development strategy
While it demands considerable resources, upskilling and retraining tech professionals consistently helps tech teams stay on top of the latest trends and technologies while prioritizing individual professional development. Furthermore, it helps build loyalty among tech employees, combat technical debt, and reduce employee turnover.
5. Modernize Your Departments
Another excellent way to grow tech teams is by modernizing tech departments by implementing the latest technologies and processes to streamline tech recruitment, onboarding, training, and development. These investments ensure that tech teams stay up-to-date with the latest trends and developments and are prepared to assess unforeseen issues in the development life cycle.
Consider investing in digital acceleration efforts such as automation, analytics, and machine learning to modernize your tech departments. Automation often helps streamline recruiting processes for faster hires, while analytics and machine learning allow tech teams to make data-driven decisions. Managers should also look into training programs and workshops to help tech teams stay up-to-date with the latest trends and technologies.
6. Upgrade Your Security
When growing a software engineering team, it's important to consider security. Having suitable cybersecurity measures is essential to protect teams and tech solutions. Cyber attacks have become more common across industries — and threats, scams, and phishing schemes are rapidly evolving. Ensure that teams have the right policies and procedures in place, including:
- Implementing two-factor authentication
- Adopting advanced endpoint protection
- Regularly updating software and hardware
- Ensuring tech teams use the latest encryption protocols have become standard practice for tech companies
- Conducting consistent internal and external security audits
- Deploying network segmentation and zero-trust architecture
Companies should invest in employee training and resources to ensure that tech teams are aware of pre-existing security measures and follow the correct protocols for implementing new standards. Security shouldn’t be the responsibility of a small group, but rather, best security practices should emanate from department heads and high-level company executives.
7. Invest in Junior Talent
Scaling teams, especially when targeting senior talent, is often expensive and takes considerable time and valuable organizational resources. Instead of passing over tech professionals who may not have the preferred experience and expertise, consider investing in junior talent. Inexperienced tech professionals often have the potential to be equally talented as experienced ones and have a highly valuable perspective for growing teams.
To identify junior or underpriced talent, search for developers with the right skills but lack experience — partnerships with universities and searching platforms such as GitHub or GitLab provide access to pools of untapped talent. Additionally, consider tech professionals who may have a degree in a related field or who are self-taught and looking to break into the tech industry. These individuals often generate creative solutions to complex development problems that other team members may not consider.
8. Target Complementary Skill Sets
Targeting complementary skill sets is a great way to build a tech team with diverse skills and experiences. After a thorough skill gap analysis and with project requirements in mind, search for tech professionals who complement your existing employees with their skills and perspectives. For example, if a team has an established software engineer, it may be appropriate to begin looking for a UX designer for front-end optimization. Additionally, teams in late-stage development may pursue testers or analysts to help software engineers QA test and debug new products.
This strategy helps tech teams work more efficiently and effectively — allowing teams to gain experienced tech professionals with different perspectives, which often helps develop more innovative solutions and increase employee engagement through collaboration. Additionally, targeting complementary skill sets helps tech teams stay agile in project management and quickly adapt to changes in the industry.
Tech Hiring Trends for 2024
In 2024, an influx of talent in the tech hiring market will likely continue, as seen in the past few years. However, hiring trends may shift and slow down due to economic downturns and mass tech layoffs at larger companies such as Amazon, Google, and Apple. While developers and engineers may experience further difficulty applying for positions in these larger corporations, small and mid-size companies may benefit from an influx of job seekers.
Here are some hiring trends to keep an eye on in the tech sector:
- An increase in hiring gig workers and remote tech professionals: Companies will continue to embrace hiring remote tech professionals and gig workers as it helps them reduce labor costs and access tech talent worldwide.
- More influence from generative AI: As the artificial intelligence boom continues, companies should prepare to integrate automated and machine learning processes in their day-to-day operations. AI developers will likely see increased employment and high demand as competition continues in the industry.
- Hiring slowdowns in major tech companies: Tech professionals will be more likely to look for hiring opportunities outside the major tech companies, such as in smaller startups and new tech companies, as hiring by large companies slows down.
- Increase in hiring tech professionals from non-traditional backgrounds: Companies will be more likely to look for talented tech professionals with non-traditional backgrounds and experiences, such as those with liberal arts backgrounds.
- New tech companies will expand hiring from outside their tech ecosystems: As new tech companies become more established, they will be more likely to look for talent outside their existing networks. This means they will look for information technology professionals from different backgrounds and experiences who bring new perspectives to the team.
Enhance Your Tech Hiring Strategy With Revelo
Ultimately, hiring tech talent in 2024 and beyond will require companies to take a strategic approach and think carefully about the hiring process. With the right mindset and strategy, you can build a highly talented, diverse, agile tech team that is ready to complement your established strengths.
Revelo is a talent marketplace that helps companies connect and hire top-tier tech talent quickly and efficiently. We provide access to a global pool of pre-vetted, qualified tech professionals for roles at all levels. Revelo also assists with ongoing administrative tasks such as onboarding, payroll, benefits, and taxes so you stay compliant with laws and regulations without breaking the bank.
Contact Revelo to hire developers and grow your cost-effective and scalable tech team today.