10 Reasons You May Fail With Tech Talent Sourcing (and Ways to Prevent This)

Tech talent sourcing is a challenge for many companies. It’s difficult to find the perfect candidate and even harder to convince them to join your team. Bridge experts know about these and other hiring challenges firsthand. Every day we help companies find perfect technical candidates, guiding them along the way to faster and more efficient tech talent sourcing. 

So, if you’re struggling with attracting the best tech minds to your company, here are some common mistakes that could be holding you back – and ways to deal with them effectively. 

Common mistakes that lead to poor tech talent sourcing

Global tech labor market is hot – the demand exceeds the supply significantly, while brilliant developers have high expectations towards both the salary they would like to get and the projects to contribute to. That’s why many companies think that the main problem with their hiring process is that their job offer isn’t good enough to attract the best tech minds. 

Still, in most cases, the devil is in the details. There are ten common mistakes that lead to poor tech talent sourcing, so let’s overview them and find viable solutions.

Mistake #1. You have no clear job requirements

When you’re in charge of hiring a new employee, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that your job post has enough information for candidates to make a well-thought-out decision. In the end, you wrote what the job entails, what hard skills candidates should have, so there shouldn’t be any problems, right?

Well, not quite. When your job requirements look generic or don’t take your company’s vision and goals into account, how can you expect the candidate to make an informed decision? Moreover, how can you choose the right person among others? This isn’t just about being able to write out what the role entails; it’s about having a clear understanding of what type of person will be successful in that role. 

The solution is simple: spend some time clarifying what kind of person you believe your company needs in order to succeed. Then use that information to create specific job descriptions and interview questions that allow candidates who are suitable for the position to stand out from those who are not.

Mistake #2. You don’t have a talent pool

If you’re not making an effort to build your own talent pool, you’re missing out. It’s the key to having access to the best tech talent in your area and beyond. Having a talent pool already gathered is also a winning strategy to speed the hiring process up since you have to look among the candidates that are already pre-selected. 

Solution: If you want to start building your talent pool, you can start with your company workers. Create a database of employees who have shown interest in learning new skills or taking on more responsibility, and when there’s a new job opportunity in your organization, you may upskill those employees and offer them this position afterward.

There are also other ways to build your own tech talent pool. If you’re interested to learn more, read our related article.

10 Ways to Build a Tech Talent Pool

Mistake #3. You look for candidates in the wrong places

If you chose a sourcing channel that has many vacant candidates, but a lot of them don’t actually have the skills or experience you need, it probably means that you’re looking in the wrong place. As an outcome, you’re going to end up with many applicants, who don’t fit. 

Solution: While it’s important to have a sufficient number of candidates for the job, it’s also crucial that they meet your project needs. So when you see that a certain channel doesn’t bring high-quality candidates, don’t stick to it and try other ones.

There are a lot of platforms and apps to look for developers apart from job boards and social media. You can hunt for the best talent on freelance websites, get in touch with the developers directly on GitHub, StackOverflow, Quora, or Reddit, and hire more diverse teams on dedicated platforms. Try them all to find the candidates you are looking for and build a thriving tech talent pool for the future. 

Hidden Gem: Best Sourcing Channels for Tech Talent Acquisition

Mistake #4. You skip under- and overqualified talent

One of the biggest mistakes companies make when they’re sourcing tech talent is that they ignore the under- and overqualified candidates.

You might think that because applicants are overqualified, they won’t be interested in your job posting. But what if they’re looking for a change of pace? Or they’re looking to do something more meaningful? Underqualified candidates, in turn, can also bring a lot of value to the table. As a rule, their lack of skills is paid off by the sincere desire to learn and grow. Such candidates will always tend to go the extra mile, even if they need some extra help. 

Solution: By ignoring under/overqualified candidates, you could miss out on some amazing people who could really help you grow your business. So consider them as well when building your talent pool so that you can easily get back to them when needed. 

Mistake #5. You don’t have a referral program

The next mistake that leads to poor tech talent sourcing is not having a referral program. This is such a simple thing, but it can make all the difference in your ability to hire top-notch developers. If you don’t have a referral program, you’re sleeping on opportunities coming from people who know your company and its culture best: your employees.

Solution: You can implement a referral program by creating a simple form for employees to fill out with their contact information and the name of someone they’d like to refer. You can also set up some incentives for employees who refer candidates who are hired. This could be anything, from an extra week of paid time off or a gift card to buy whatever they want. 

Mistake #6. Your job ads aren’t compelling to candidates

Here are some of the most common mistakes organizations make when they write their job ads:

• The job description is too vague and doesn’t provide enough detail about how the role will be executed. When candidates don’t know what they’re getting into, they tend to look elsewhere.
• The company doesn’t show its personality or culture in the ad, which can make potential applicants feel like they’re reading a “template” instead of something that was written specifically for them.
• The company doesn’t seem like investing in its employees’ growth and development. If candidates don’t think you care about their well-being or advancement within your organization, why would they want to work for you?

Solution: Take some time to write a compelling job ad that includes all the necessary details. You’ll want to consider the following:

• What’s unique about your company? What makes working in it exciting?

• Why should candidates apply? What do they get out of it? How will they be able to grow in their role?

• What kind of environment are people working in? Do people have fun at work? Or do they feel like they’re part of a family?

Mistake #7. You run too few/too many interview sessions

This is another mistake that prevents you from attracting top technical talent. If you run too few sessions, you won’t get enough data on each candidate and may miss out on the talent that would have been perfect for the position. If you run too many sessions, it can lead to candidate burnout, frustration, and lost interest in your position. 

Solution: Set up interviews with enough time between them to process the interview results, get ready for the next round if necessary, and come up with personalized interview questions. When talking about the number of interview rounds, here is what our talent sourcing expert, Anastasia Sviatsova, says:

“As for interviews, I think 2-3 rounds is the number that makes the most sense. More than that is meaningless. If more people need to meet the candidate, they are welcome to meet them at a round table during the second or third interview.”

Mistake 8. Your test task takes too much time

This is a mistake that is often made because companies tend to underestimate the time it takes to complete a test task. This can be a problem for two reasons: first, your candidates may lose interest, and second, it might not be worth it for them to spend their time on a test task.

Here is another quote from Anastasia Shviatsova in this regard: 

“Personally and professionally, I’m very much against test tasks. They don’t correspond at all to a real-life task, that will take days or months to complete. Instead, it is better to check the portfolio of the candidate more carefully. The matter is that most great programmers cope with test tasks badly, because they’re used to deep work.”

Solution: If you can’t cancel a test task at all, but notice that your candidates are losing interest in the process, consider making it shorter and similar to your company’s everyday work. If most candidates are still interested in working with you, but are unwilling to take the time to complete an assignment, consider offering them a paid test task.

Mistake #9. You don’t use hiring automation tools

If you don’t use hiring automation tools, it means that you:

• Are struggling with scheduling interviews aligned between time zones and with no double-booking
• Have to spend way too much time organizing candidate info
• Are more likely to miss important details about candidates
• Have to screen resumes manually 

Solution: AI-powered solutions for talent sourcing and recruitment automation solve all these problems at once, so check the list of the most effective tools in our dedicated article. 

Mistake #10. You narrow the search to your location only

If you’re looking for tech talent, it’s tempting to narrow your search down to people from your city or country. After all, it’s easier to meet them in person, and there’s a high probability that they would like to join your team in your office.

While it may seem like a good idea at first glance, limiting yourself to a single location can be a mistake. In fact, when you’re trying to find the right person for the job, it’s better to widen your search as much as possible, leveraging the opportunities of global hiring. 

Think Globally: How to Get the Best Tech Talent for Your Company

Solution: Sourcing talent locally seems to let you play safe, but in fact, it makes the process more challenging and doesn’t guarantee that you will find the right talent (especially when we’re talking about attracting rare gems). Global talent sourcing can increase your chances of finding someone who meets all of your requirements – and who is willing to relocate if necessary. And Bridge can help you hire top-notch software developers across three continents depending on the requirements you have and the specifics of the talent you are looking for. 

Give your talent sourcing a pitfall-free way with Bridge

The mistakes we have analyzed are not rare, but most of them aren’t difficult to fix. However, if you want to avoid them all from the very beginning of your tech talent sourcing process, there is a one-stop solution that will let you avoid manual work and focus on your project. 

With the help of our sourcing-as-a-service, you are welcome to leverage the power of our proprietary data-driven engine that will help you find the right candidates in a 900k-wide tech talent pool. It automates 80% of the sourcing process, eliminating the need for additional hiring automation software and making the tech talent sourcing process 60% cheaper compared to hiring technical talent in an old-school way. 

You don’t have to look for software developers across the platforms either – we will gather a pool of pre-vetted and interested candidates for you. The only thing you will have to do is interview the most suitable specialist or add them to your candidates’ list. That’s why most of our customers subscribe to our sourcing-as-a-service on a monthly or yearly basis to always have relevant candidates at hand. 

Get in touch with us today and hire top-notch software developers finest-tuned to your job requirements!