How to create your IT recruitment plan
Your business’s staffing needs might change. So might the roles you’re recruiting for. But a good overall IT recruitment strategy will always pay dividends.
Here’s how to create your IT recruitment plan in a way that ensures you’re ready no matter what the future holds:
What is an IT recruitment plan?
Your IT recruitment plan sets out how you are going to go about recruiting staff for key IT jobs over the next few years (or longer).
Having a comprehensive plan that’s an actual document ensures your hiring is proactive rather than continual knee-jerk responses to immediate needs.
With a good recruitment plan for Information Technology roles, you minimise the number of bad hires you make and ensure you’re recruiting with a purpose.
How to create your IT recruitment plan
1) Assess your current skills and workforce
How does your business stand right now? What talent do you already have in-house?
Almost as importantly, do you have a plan to keep them in-house? Retention is just as important as IT recruitment in many ways.
Knowledge like this can also help you internally redeploy your team so that you have the best person in the best place at the best time.
Finally, you should assess whether you are having a turnover problem and any possible causes behind it.
2) Identify skills gaps
These are the skills you need to ensure you can continue to operate and grow. Perhaps you know you will need cybersecurity or infrastructure expertise for an upcoming expansion.
For each role, it’s good practice to create a job description detailing the complete package of candidate you would ideally like to hire.
As well as hard skills, you might want to think about the personality traits and soft skills you’re looking for. Don’t default to “great communication skills”. Try to be specific.
3) Consider upskilling and leadership candidates
There are often convenient places where the potential of your existing team can be built on to deliver the skills your company is missing.
Are there any leadership candidates ideal for starting that new team? Are there any hard workers or high-flyers who would benefit from more training?
Of course, it’s important to then consider how you would fill the existing roles of people you promote or upskill to move elsewhere.
4) Review your recruitment process for bottlenecks
Bottlenecks in the IT recruitment process can take many forms. Some of the most common and problematic include:
-Cumbersome online job applications (asking for a CV plus the same info again via form)
-Too many interviews
-Too much time between interview and hiring decisions
One of the best ways to streamline your recruitment process and address these issues is to assign a single point of contact for each candidate.
If you already work with an external IT recruitment agency, they should handle this for you. If not, your point of contact’s job is to keep the candidate up-to-date and eager for the role.
5) Plan for interviews, decisions, and onboarding
Your interview process is where you can make or break your recruitment for IT jobs.
Do your interviews winnow applicants down to the ideal candidate for the job? Or do they take forever and leave you none-the-wiser?
A thorough analysis of your interview process is a key part of improving your overall IT recruitment strategy if you want to end up with the best new hire.
Part of this should include keeping clear communications open with candidates until a decision is made. That decision should not be delayed.
Finally, onboarding should be viewed as a part of the process. Don’t be one of those companies that leaves new hires all at sea and still expect them to perform at their best.
Determine how you will source candidates
The most straightforward way to source the top candidates in the specific fields of Information Technology you need is to use a specialist IT recruitment company.
Ernest Gordon‘s extensive talent pool and proven, open, honest and transparent process makes us the ideal partner for businesses in every industry.
Reach out to us today to discuss your staffing needs with zero commitment.