Why IT Leaders Need to Move Swiftly When Hiring Top IT Talent

Tech hiring managers know that recruiting for open positions can be a lengthy process, especially in a tight market. However, technology hiring is far slower than average and seriously lags behind hiring for other sectors. According to a recent study, the average time-to-hire for all US jobs is 22.9 days. But for complex IT positions, that number is much greater. Data shows that it can take 35 days to hire a software engineer, 28.3 days to hire a senior app developer and 28.1 days to hire a product engineer.  With an ever-increasing skill gap, a raging war for talent, and an innovate-or-die marketplace, IT hiring teams have to do better.

Slow Hiring Damages Your Brand

A candidate’s only experience “working” with you is through the interview process. If it takes six weeks to get to the decision stage, top candidates see this as a reflection of your corporate culture and they will assume that once hired, all decisions will move at a glacial pace. This is not something that innovative and forward-thinking tech pros want to see from a potential employer. They want to work with companies that gather information quickly, analyze it, and make a decision.

In a nationwide survey of more than 1,000 workers, 46% of respondents noted that they lose interest within one to two weeks following an interview with a company. Your team may think it is being methodical and deliberate with a slow-moving hiring process, but it actually damages your employer brand and puts you at risk of losing out on great candidates today and in the future.

Slow Movers Pay More

If you spot a great candidate you can assume that other companies have seen their potential as well. IT salaries have rapidly increased over the last decade, and the talent wars and skills gap continue to drive them upward. The longer your hiring process takes, the more likely you are to find yourself in a salary bidding war with another company. If that company has deeper pockets, you’ll lose the candidate and find yourself settling for a less-than-ideal prospect, or worse –starting the hiring process from square one and increasing the overall cost of the search.

Decreasing Time-To-Hire Without Sacrificing Quality

Slow and deliberate hiring seems like the right approach when it involves something as critical to business success as your information systems. Companies obviously want to find the best and the brightest to promote innovation, ensure systems run smoothly, and keep security air-tight. In order to find strong matches, organizations have developed lengthy processes to identify skills, uncover a candidate’s personality and workstyle and determine alignment. But those slow processes will cost the company top candidates and create negative ripples across the organization. So how can you conduct a thorough, yet efficient search?

Overhauling IT hiring isn’t easy. It takes a great deal of time, energy and resources. However, there is a way to tap into the best active and passive candidates in the market and find the right professionals for your team.  When you partner with the IT talent acquisition experts at Talon, you can decrease your time-to-hire while increasing the quality of your candidate matches. If you are ready to learn more and hear about our track record of helping organizations like yours achieve their hiring and retention goals, contact our team today.