Recruiting Top Talent: 5 Essential Tips for Attracting the Best Tech Professionals

Gone are the days when highly skilled candidates would settle for a tedious and impersonal application process. Instead, candidates now expect a seamless and engaging interaction—and hiring managers in 2024 need to pay attention to what tech-savvy knowledge workers want from their job-shopping journey.

This shift in candidate expectations, especially for candidates with advanced degrees seeking positions in tech, has prompted organizations to prioritize the candidate experience, recognizing that it can make or break their recruitment efforts.

Let’s take a look at five ways your tech company can create a positive and impactful experience for potential hires in 2024 and attract the best talent to your organization.

Job candidate expectations have shifted over the past few years, especially for skilled workers with advanced degrees and strong tech literacy. These candidates may begin to judge your company from the moment they begin an online application process. Tech-savvy workers expect to see hiring workflows that are mobile-friendly, easy to follow, and require minimal manual tasks.

Katie Clary of HR Dive shared this in a recent webinar hosted by Checkr and HR Dive: "The application journey should feel as enticing and effortless as our consumer journeys. Job seekers want a speedy process outfitted with a seamless tech experience."

Webinar panelist Marquis McCraw of Easterseals Southern California added, "One of the biggest mistakes that organizations make in the recruiting process is not making the candidate experience a priority," emphasizing the significance of treating candidates like customers.

In addition to a seamless tech experience, candidates also value a human touch in the recruiting process. This means providing personalized interactions and transparent communication to make candidates feel valued and heard

With the rise of social media and online reviews, candidates have the power to share their experiences with potential future employees, making it crucial for organizations to prioritize the candidate experience. As McCraw stated, "treating candidates like customers" not only creates a positive impression for the individual but also strengthens the employer's brand.

A lack of transparency from your hiring team can lead to candidates feeling like their application has disappeared into an abyss. This can result in candidates feeling “ghosted,” dropping out of the hiring process, and potentially sharing their negative experiences with colleagues or on social media.

On the other hand, by providing clear communication and updates throughout the hiring process, employers can build trust and show their commitment to valuing each candidate's time and effort.

This means providing timely updates on the status of the candidate's application, being transparent about the job requirements and responsibilities, and being clear about the timeline for the hiring process. Lack of communication can lead to frustration and ultimately deter potential candidates from pursuing opportunities with your company.

When you’re juggling a large number of candidates applying for a relatively small number of open roles, it's not always possible to follow up face-to-face at every stage of the hiring process. That’s where tech tools and automation come in. Your team can strategize which basic notifications could be automated to reduce time-consuming manual tasks (like interview scheduling and background checks), and where personal touchpoints could have the highest impact.

Tech candidates today consider the big picture when selecting their next role—even (and perhaps especially) if they've experienced a recent layoff. They don't only want to feel valued and prioritized during the hiring process; they want to know that once they onboard, they'll continue to be supported and enjoy their work environment.

Organizations can highlight their company culture and values when recruiting, as this can significantly influence a candidate's decision to accept or decline a job offer. When candidates can anticipate what values company leadership will promote and how they'll interact with managers and coworkers (in-person or remotely), they may feel more confident about staying in your hiring funnel to the end.

Creating an intentionally accessible recruiting process that focuses on candidate diversity opens up your roles to more populations and gets more qualified talent in your pipeline.

This can look like offering multiple modes of applying to a role, interviewing, and communicating with hiring teams. Allowing candidates to self-select their preferred communication format within set guidelines can help signal your commitment to welcoming employees with different needs, from different backgrounds.

At Checkr, for example, we help employers activate fair chance hiring practices that can widen talent pools and reduce bias during hiring. There are 80 million working age adults in the US who have been impacted by the justice system and may have a conviction or arrest show up on a criminal record check. These individuals have skills, talents, and determination that can greatly benefit our workforce, and carefully considering each of these candidates’ stories (instead of quickly taking adverse action) can help your talent acquisition team leap ahead of the competition.

Diversity and inclusion can be more than just be a checkbox; it can be ingrained in your hiring practices to create a stronger and more successful team.

Simply filling vacancies shouldn't be the only metric you use to assess recruitment success. To continue to build a stronger hiring flow, you should also consider your candidate experience and new hires’ performance after coming on board.

As noted above, a successful candidate experience from the job seeker's perspective often means a fast, seamless journey from application to interview to signing an offer letter. Your team should be asking: What are we doing to make the candidate experience as frictionless as possible, and keep our ideal candidates from dropping off?

Automation and technology can help improve the candidate experience without overwhelming recruiters. The right tech stack can speed up the hiring process (creating a better experience for both candidates and your hiring team), mitigate unconscious bias during hiring, and help pre-screen candidates before human interviews.

When you focus on keeping more discerning, highly skilled candidates in your funnel, the end result isn't just seats filled. It's seats filled with your top picks for talent, ready to perform at a high level and create a positive recruitment ROI.

In today's digital age, where candidates have the power to share their experiences with potential future employees, organizations cannot afford to overlook the importance of the candidate experience in recruitment. By providing a seamless experience, personalized interactions, and transparent communication, tech employers can create a positive impression on candidates and strengthen their brand.

But where to start? One area that’s often overlooked is the background check experience. If you evaluate your background check process and see it could be faster, easier to complete, and better integrated with your hiring tech stack—it’s time to make a change. Checkr’s advanced data retrieval and reporting capabilities speed up background checks, and we offer 100+ ATS and HRIS integrations that make adding Checkr to your hiring flow simple and smooth. Our mobile-friendly candidate portal provides a transparent view into the screening process and next steps, helping you make a great first impression with your top candidates.

Create customized screening packages—including criminal record checks, MVRs, education and employment verification, credit checks, and more—that help you fill roles faster with qualified tech talent, at any scale. Get started now.

The resources and information provided here are for educational and informational purposes only and do not constitute legal advice. Always consult your own counsel for up-to-date legal advice and guidance related to your practices, needs, and compliance with applicable laws.

About the author

As Content Marketing Manager at Checkr, Kate is passionate about developing resources that educate employers and job candidates about background checks, hiring insights, and the opportunity to build a better future through fair chance hiring.