Candidate Attraction: Top Tips to Find and Attract the Best Tech Talent

A strong candidate attraction strategy can be the difference between hiring the right or wrong person for your IT team or project. 

In 2022, the European Labour Authority reported that the Netherlands had the third-highest total skills shortage in Europe. 

Many of these shortages are in the ICT industry. The government’s recent Green and Digital Jobs Action Plan found that by 2026 an additional 58,300 people would be needed for ICT roles, to meet their target of 1 million skilled ICT workers by 2030.  In June, they allocated €123m to help achieve this and towards tackling the problem.

In this highly competitive market, tech leaders, hiring managers and HR departments, need to be proactive and creative in their approach to attracting candidates to their business. 

Our article highlights some of the top tips to finding and attracting tech talent including:

• Talent attraction starts with the recruitment process.

• The importance of employer branding.

• Ways to reach your target applicants.

How to improve your recruitment process

A great talent attraction strategy starts with the hiring company itself. Even if you decide to work with a recruitment agency, you will still need to create a smooth process that works for your business. A specialist recruitment agency can often help guide you through this, but ultimately, you know your business best, and can set the parameters for success.

A good starting point is to produce an assessment of your hiring needs, whether contract or permanent workers are required, and then tailor your approach, considering: 

• Number of hires.

• Experience and skills needed.

• On site, remote or hybrid.

• Who will take ownership of the hiring process?

• What is the timeline and is there a hard deadline?

• Who needs to be involved in the interview stages and decision-making process? 

• What does success look like? 

Once you have mapped out your hiring requirements, you can move on to the next stage – employer branding. 

The importance of employer branding in attracting candidates

Employer branding is how people perceive your companies’ values and work environment, and ultimately how your company’s reputation is received.  

Your employer brand should come right from the top of your business, through to how management leads and train workers, how HR manage employee relations and policies, and then how marketing promote the business. Overall, HR is normally responsible for employer branding, but all departments need to work together to ensure success. 

The benefits of having an attractive employer brand include: 

• Getting more job applications as candidates can see the benefits of working for your company, and proactively apply to work for it. 

• Improving retention as employees appreciate and identify with what your business stands for and how they look after their people. 

• Attracting the best quality candidates, as your business looks more attractive than your competitors, through its values, benefits, perks, training etc.

There are many ways to enhance your employer branding. Firstly, assess what your competitors are doing, to set a benchmark, then look at ways to stand out and appeal more to your target candidates. 

• Produce a clear list of compensation and benefits that are in line with inflation and focus on providing more work-life balance. 

• Create clear training or development plans. This is especially important in tech as the software is always changing, and professionals need time to train and keep up to date. 

• Agree clear policies and procedures that ensure a safe and inclusive environment for all. 

• Work with marketing to bring your brand to life through social media, careers pages, and videos. 

Employer branding expert, Yves Pilat, who is featured on the UVW Inspiratie website, aimed at helping Dutch employers find and retain people, advises “Be clear on who you are, then finding a good match will be easier”.

Ways to reach the best tech talent

There is no one size fits all when it comes to candidate attraction, and the more specialist your recruitment needed, the more tailored your approach should be. 

Your talent attraction strategy should generally use the same channels your target applicants use. These could include: 

• LinkedIn: Although LinkedIn is popular, try not to rely on it too much, it can work out expensive. 

• Jobs boards: Jobs boards can be important to reach active candidates. Consider jobs boards like indeed.nl and nationalvacaturebank.nl.  Jobs boards can be expensive though, so consider working with a recruitment agency, as this cost should be included in their service. 

• Networking: Find ways to access more passive candidates by getting involved in specialist tech networking events, forums, and conferences. This long-term approach will make hiring easier over time as you expand your reach. 

• Consider recruitment agencies: Recruitment agencies provide a shortcut for businesses, by giving you access to skilled and experienced tech professionals, both active and passive. They can also promote your employer brand, selling you as a great company to work for. They can reach out directly via email and phone, reducing your admin by screening and qualifying each interested candidate. 

In order to build a successful candidate attraction plan, try to understand the motivators of the people you want to reach and tailor your attraction efforts.   Also attempt to reach those people that aren’t actively looking for work.   Dutch employees are among the most disengaged globally, with only 12% of them feeling ‘engaged’ in their work, according to a 2022 Gallup survey. This presents forward-thinking organisations with a huge talent pool and a real opportunity to tap into it.

Need specialist recruitment support? 

Candidate attraction is more of an art than a science, and needs consistency, creativity, experience, and access to the right candidate network. 

Building a workforce can be time-consuming and expensive, especially if you are struggling to find quality IT professionals. That is why a recruitment agency, like Gravitas, can help save you time and money. 

Our experienced team can help advise you on the best techniques, reach out to our extensive candidate network, while managing the whole recruitment process from start to finish, reducing your own internal admin tasks. 

For a no obligation consultation, contact our tech recruitment specialists, and we’ll be happy to help. Alternatively, read more about our hiring solutions.