USA
Colombia
Chile
Brazil
Costa Rica
Hungary
Bulgaria
Romania
Czech Republic
Poland
Portugal
Struggling with hiring top tech talent? While your recruitment strategies can be pretty creative and smart, sometimes the reason for a low success rate is the small number of sourcing channels you use when looking for new employees. That’s why in this article, we will overview the best sourcing channels for talent acquisition, so that you can reach out to the largest possible number of suitable candidates and build a thriving tech talent pool for 2023.
Having no time to hunt for top tech talent across freelance platforms, job boards, and social media? We know how to find them in a few days – reach out now to discover!
Why traditional sourcing channels may not work as efficiently as you would like them to
Tech talent shortage, the Great Resignation, and the Recession are the main reasons why hiring ICT specialists is difficult, costly, and time-consuming. While recruiters do their best to be creative with their sourcing strategies and channels, there are still some other reasons why acquiring tech talent becomes harder.
- It’s hard to compete for talent via social media. Social media platforms have long become a part of recruitment and sourcing strategies. But while finding candidates is relatively easy with their help, competing for them becomes more and more challenging. 95% of recruiters use LinkedIn to look for job candidates, so standing out with your message is really difficult.
- Some candidates quit social media to avoid templated messages from recruiters. As the logical continuation of the previous statement, many top candidates are already tired of recruiters’ messages and requests, so they decide to abandon using social media, especially LinkedIn.
- Top candidates often hide their CVs on job boards to avoid messages from recruiters. In addition to abandoning social media, some candidates decide to disappear from the job market completely, hiding their resumes on job boards and deleting their profiles on freelance platforms.
- A job description with no salary range specified has fewer chances to attract candidates. By hiding a salary range you would like to offer to your software developers can be a wise decision, given the highly competitive labor and tech markets. However, candidates are less likely to apply for such vacancies. While salary level is rarely the only thing that matters most for software developers, they still would like to know what you can offer them before applying for an opening.
- Writing a compelling job ad copy is challenging. The concept of recruitment marketing has the right to exist, making a job ad copy one of the main tools for the applicants’ generation. At the same time, writing a meaningful and attractive job description is difficult – you have to not only describe the position in detail but also make it sound compelling and include DEI statements in it.
The ultimate list of tech talent sourcing channels
Diversifying your candidate sourcing channels is one of the viable solutions to deal with the challenges mentioned above. The more candidate sourcing sites, platforms, and applications you use, the more chances of hiring international employees with great skill sets you get. Below we are going to list diverse recruiting channels you are welcome to try for filling urgent vacancies and building a thriving talent pool for the future.
Freelance platforms
Let’s take a closer look at the most popular freelance platforms. The ones we list in this article are good sourcing channels for both short and long-term projects that need to hire software developers on freelance, part-time or full-time terms.
Upwork
Upwork is a platform that connects businesses with top technical talent across the globe. It’s easy to use and it’s free, so you can find and hire the best people for your project in minutes. The site has an extensive database of qualified professionals and freelancers, as well as tools for managing projects and communicating with clients.
TopTal
Toptal is a platform that connects businesses with the world’s best freelance software engineers, designers, and project managers. The company is committed to changing the way companies hire technical talent by providing them with access to a global community of elite freelancers. Hence, the cost to hire software developers on this platform is pretty high.
Turing
Turing is one more option to diversify your sourcing channels and hire remote developers from the global talent pool. This platform stands out with its machine learning algorithm that accurately matches the candidates with your job requirements. As claimed by Turing, there are 1,5 million tech specialists on the platform skilled with more than 100 trending technologies.
Toptal vs Turing vs Andela vs Arc vs Bridge: Which Is the Best Option for Hiring Remote Tech Talent?
Andela
If you are looking for Junior to Middle software developers, consider Andela for this goal. This website stands somewhere on the verge between a freelance platform and a job posting application. After you post your open vacancy on Andela, the system suggests up to 100 candidates sourcing from mainly South Africa. As promised by the platform, the candidates’ recommendations are deeply personalized.
Arc
Arc is the platform for sourcing Senior-level tech candidates. With Arc, you can hire freelance developers, and full-time employees, set up a remote development team, or create your own remote hub. Arc stands out with its rigorous vetting system and AI-powered engine that carefully matches the candidates with the project requirements. It has the smallest talent pool compared to TopTal and Turing, but the quality of the candidates is claimed to be the highest.
Forums and communities
Dedicated forums and developers’ communities are also great sourcing channels for recruiting tech talent. In this way, you can catch the fish where it is found, so below are the main platforms to look for programming talent.
GitHub
GitHub is a platform for software developers to collaborate, share code, and build better software together. It has become a go-to place for companies looking to hire top-notch software developers. The site’s open-source model means that you can search through thousands of projects, see what other companies are doing, and find exactly the kind of developer you need.
StackOverflow
StackOverflow is a question-and-answer website for professional and enthusiast programmers. It’s a place for developers to share expertise, solve problems, and help each other in their programming pursuits. As a recruiter, you can also reach out to those with the necessary expertise, share your job opportunity and continue your conversation in a more convenient communication channel.
Women Who Code
Women Who Code is a nonprofit organization that supports and empowers women in tech. Its mission is to close the gender gap in technology by removing barriers and providing opportunities for women to learn, grow, and succeed in the industry. The platform lets companies hire female software developers for their teams, making them more diverse and inclusive.
Hiring for Diversity: Why Tech Teams Need To Be More Diverse
Job boards
While job boards aren’t new sourcing channels, skipping them would still be a huge mistake. Below are the ones with the highest success rate for both job seekers and employers.
Indeed
Indeed is a platform that connects job seekers with recruiters. It’s used by more than 100 million job seekers each month and has 1,300,000 employers posting jobs. You’ll be able to see who the candidates worked with in the past, what skills they have, and how well they’ve performed on past jobs. You can also find out how much they’re looking to get paid and how many days off they’re requesting.
Glassdoor
In addition to Indeed, pay attention to Glassdoor. Glassdoor helps you find the right candidates for your organization, plus it empowers them to make informed decisions about where they want to work. With free tools like the Glassdoor Job Search and company pages, you can attract top talent by promoting jobs and creating a more appealing employer brand.
Flexjobs
Where to hire software developers with diverse skill sets and remote work experience? Flexjobs is the answer. This website is largely focused on remote and “Work from Home” jobs. As a remote work opportunity along with a flexible schedule is among the main things modern software developers appreciate, posting your vacancy on Flexjobs would be the right solution for finding remote candidates.
AngelList
AngelList is a platform that facilitates the hiring of developers by startups. The platform allows startups to post jobs, and engineers to apply for them. There is also a free in-built applicant tracking system, or you can integrate Angellist with the one you already use. There are 8 million startup-ready candidates on the platform, so finding the right people for your new project is unlikely to be a headache anymore.
How to Hire the Right Employees for a Startup Faster and Smarter
Social media
Despite being highly competitive, social media are also worthy channels for tech talent acquisition. Consider the following ones to look for candidates across the globe.
Facebook has become one of the most popular platforms for recruitment because it allows people to find potential employees in their own networks — a concept known as “social recruiting.” In addition to providing an opportunity for users to connect with each other, Facebook also offers a way for businesses to reach out to candidates via direct messages or carefully-targeted advertising campaigns to promote their opening and build a pool of applicants.
Like Facebook, Twitter hardly needs an introduction. In addition to being one of the most popular social media sites to date, there is an opportunity to hire software developers and other tech specialists. Just use hashtags on Twitter to find the people you’re looking for. You can also use hashtags in your own tweets, so other people can find them more easily. For example: if you want to hire a software developer, try searching for #softwaredeveloper or #coders4hire
Local Telegram groups
If you want to hire software developers locally, consider joining local tech communities in Telegram. They’re typically full of people eager to help each other out, and they can also assist you to find developers experienced in the type of work you need. Telegram is free to use, but keep its geo distribution in mind – this instant messenger is especially popular in India, the United States, and Brazil.
Additional tactics to source top talent
The tech talent acquisition channels we have overviewed above are the most popular ones to get in touch with top-skilled software developers and expand your talent pool. In addition to them, consider a few more winning options to connect with the right people in easier yet effective ways.
Referral system
According to statistics, 50% of referrals will stay at their job for more than three years. But it isn’t the only good thing about a referral system. The matter is that top-skilled software developers usually have programmers of the same or higher professional level in their network, so the chances of getting a winning recommendation are pretty high.
Networking
85% of jobs are filled through networking so consider it in addition to the referral system. Take a closer look at your professional network, search for people you can ask for a recommendation, and keep expanding it. Also, consider visiting thematic events, hackathons, and conferences to meet the right people, exchange contact information, and tell them more about your project at the right moment.
Sourcing-as-a-service
In addition to using the platforms and websites we have listed, leveraging a referral system, and expanding your professional network, consider partnering with a tech sourcing vendor to add a few more worthy candidates to your talent pool. We, at Bridge, can help you reach out to top talent across three continents with our data-driven sourcing-as-a-service.
Our talent sourcing engine allows us to find the finest-tuned candidates from a global talent pool, using multiple filters and data points. It automates 80% of the talent search process and saves up to 60% of sourcing costs – these are just some of the reasons why our customers subscribe to our sourcing-as-a-service and use it to fill multiple positions, quickly bridge the talent gap in case the project necessities change and always have qualified candidates at hand.
Talk to our talent sourcing team now to discover an advanced approach to tech talent acquisition in 2023!
