How to Attract Tech Talent to Your Software Jobs

Knowing how to attract tech talent to your software jobs is crucial in a competitive industry. Once you understand the types of people you want to bring into your business, be it permanent or contract hires, it’s essential to determine your approach to attracting talent. Thankfully, our blog is here to help you attract the best software talent within the tech community to enhance your software team and your organisation.

In this blog, we'll explore effective strategies to make your business stand out to potential candidates in a busy job market. From showcasing your employer brand and providing development opportunities to offering competitive software salaries, creating engaging job descriptions, and delivering an inclusive interview experience, we'll cover the core steps to enhance your software recruitment process. 

This blog explores the following steps to attracting talent to your software jobs:

• Showcase Your Employer Brand to Software Talent

• Provide Tech Talent With Development Opportunities

• Offer Competitive Software Salaries and Company Benefits

• Write Engaging Job Descriptions For Your Software Jobs

• Deliver an Inclusive Interview Stage For Your Software Jobs
  
  

Showcase Your Employer Brand to Software Talent

Our first piece of advice for attracting talent to your software jobs is to showcase your employer brand. Your employer brand should explain to tech talent and your broader audience of stakeholders and shareholders who your company is, what you do, and why you do it. 

Showcasing your employer brand to the software professionals you want to attract allows them to get to know your business. It gives them a reason to apply for your vacancies over a competitor. As you begin establishing or refining your employer brand, it’s essential to consider your mission, vision, and values and how they will resonate with the software developers and engineers you want to attract.

To showcase your employer brand, you can publish insight pieces, such as blogs about the top trends in software development or your tech stack, interviews with industry experts or case studies with the clients you’ve supported. Producing content like this can highlight the software projects you’ve worked on while presenting you as a thought leader within the industry. 

This content can also highlight relevant software events your business has attended and the benefits you offer to your employees. For example, these benefits can include training and development opportunities and well-being programmes, showcasing how you support the careers and personal growth of your tech talent. Later in this piece, we’ll discuss the topic of benefits more.

As you focus your efforts on your employer brand, make sure to promote your workplace culture. Promoting your culture through your content allows candidates to understand what it’s like to work in your team. It also ensures you receive quality applications from tech talent who are genuinely interested in applying for your software jobs. This content can be testimonials from your existing software team or posts praising the work of your software professionals. 

Remember, showcasing your company culture as part of your employer brand is not just about promoting the social events your business puts on. Instead, it should highlight aspects of your organisation, such as your history, mission, and values, along with examples of collaboration and innovation that will resonate with software talent.

Your employer brand can be showcased through various channels, such as your social platforms like LinkedIn or your website. Additionally, you can take your collateral of content and expertise to events or networking opportunities within the tech community. To effectively showcase your employer brand, you should utilise any avenue and outlet you have to promote your business to the broader market. 

Showcasing your employer brand across various channels, including job descriptions, can help build recognition with your business and the market’s top software professionals. Your content, posts and networking should focus on resonating with the tech community, giving them a reason and enticing them to apply for software jobs over your competitors.

Provide Software Talent With Development Opportunities

As you look at attracting talent within the tech community to your software jobs, it’s essential to offer candidates with the potential for training and development opportunities. Doing so shows your commitment to their careers and highlights your brand as one that invests in its talent. If software professionals see that you offer these opportunities, it could be the deciding factor that makes them apply for your vacancies. 

These training and development opportunities could be conducted internally or through external training providers and online courses. They could be available to tech talent of all levels, from entry-level candidates seeking to develop their skills in a particular soft or technical skill to senior-level professionals looking to move into management positions. 

For example, a graduate looking to broaden their skill set may want to enrol in an advanced-level programming language course. Alternatively, a senior-level professional seeking management positions may wish to complete communication and leadership training. 

Offering these development opportunities will entice the best candidates to your business - tech talent who are passionate and keen to learn new skills and progress their software careers. While your new hires gain the opportunity to develop their knowledge and skills, your business will also benefit from an enhanced internal skill set. These additional skills can ensure your software team has the resources to stay competitive in the market and close any skills gaps.

You can promote your commitment to professional development in your software job descriptions and during the interview stage. Regarding the latter, you could ask candidates about their career aspirations and what skills they’d like to improve. Their response can help you determine if the individual is genuinely passionate about the role and allows you to map out a potential training and development plan where they can learn the necessary soft and technical skills to grow with your business. 

These opportunities can also be offered to your existing workforce to support retention efforts. They can be used to upskill or reskill your software team to address any skill gaps and ensure your people are equipped with the proper credentials to bring success to your brand. Overall, creating an environment of continuous learning and growth ensures you attract talent who will remain motivated, skilled, and loyal.

Offer Competitive Software Salaries and Company Benefits

If your company is enhancing its software recruitment strategy to attract tech talent, it’s important to consider the salary and company benefits you’re offering candidates. Regarding company benefits and software salaries, it’s worth researching the market and your competitors to see what others within your space offer. Budget-dependent, you could offer similar software salaries and benefits to support you in attracting talent within the tech community.

For context and as of this writing, here are the average annual software salaries posted by popular job boards. Note: These salaries refer to the role of software engineers and have been included to give you an idea of what you could offer your software talent to attract them to your business:

• Indeed: £46,787

• Glassdoor: £53,324

• Reed: £57,116

Depending on your preferences, type or the seniority of the software role you’re advertising, you could display your software salaries on your job posts or choose to present them only at the interview stage.

It’s important not to focus solely on software salaries, as they will not be enough to attract tech talent to your software jobs. Not every software professional is motivated by money, so you should offer the candidate a well-rounded compensation and benefits package. This package could be tailored to the individual based on their role, skill set, and experience. 

These benefits could be outlined on the job post and at the interview stage. They could include the following:

• Salary: As mentioned, provide competitive base software salaries that reflect market rates and the candidate’s experience.

• Rewards: Offer performance-based incentives to reward your software professionals for their work. This can highlight the value you see in them to help drive their motivation.

• Paid Holidays: Provide generous paid time off to promote work-life balance and prevent burnout within your software team.

• Sick Pay: Ensure your tech talent is supported with paid sick leave during health challenges.

• Pension Savings Plan: Offer retirement savings plans to help your software talent secure their financial future.

• Employee Insurance: Offer comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance to provide peace of mind for your software professionals' health.

With a strong employer brand and workplace culture, training and development opportunities, and competitive software salaries and benefits, you can ensure you’re doing everything possible to attract talent to your software team. It will also help you retain your existing workforce of software professionals, which is just as essential as attracting talent.

Write Engaging Job Descriptions For Your Software Jobs

You may be offering the best software jobs on the market. However, if your job descriptions are not enticing enough, you will fail to source your ideal candidates. Therefore, another top tip on how to attract tech talent to your business and optimise your software recruitment strategy is to ensure your job descriptions are engaging and target the right people.

When writing descriptions for software jobs, it’s essential to be specific about the role you’re recruiting for. You can present this in the job title. This may seem obvious, but a job title such as ‘Software Developer’ could be too vague and deter some professionals. Remember, the job title is the first thing software developers and engineers will see, so it must be relevant to the suitable candidates.

Depending on the role, be specific to ensure you attract the software professionals you want to hire. For example, if your vacancy is for graduate talent, state this in the title of your job description - 'Graduate Software Developer' or 'Entry-level Software Developer'. In this case, you can guarantee that the applications you will receive will be from graduate software developers rather than talent who are too senior or overqualified. 

Moving on to the main body of the description, you should write a concise overview of the role, including the primary responsibilities individuals will carry out daily. You should outline the required skills, qualifications, and experience in the software job description. Doing so allows potential candidates to understand what will be expected of them and if they’re qualified for the position. It also filters the applicants from the tech community that you want to attract from unqualified candidates. 

You could also include the location and salary of the role while clearly indicating whether you’re looking for permanent or contract software talent. The job description is also your opportunity to highlight your employer brand and company benefits to set your business apart from your competitors.

Remember, the active and passive software professionals reading your job descriptions will be looking at other opportunities. Therefore, you must develop your descriptions to stand out to attract the talent you want to be part of your software team. 

Your internal HR and talent acquisition team, senior software professionals, or an external software recruitment agency could write your software descriptions. Regardless, you must ensure they engage and target the right people if you're serious about attracting talent to your software team. 

Deliver an Inclusive Interview Stage For Your Software Jobs

Our final point on how to attract tech talent to your software jobs is to deliver an inclusive interview process. As you prepare to interview the applicants, conduct a background check on each candidate, reviewing their CVs and social accounts to gain insight into the person you'll be interviewing. If you're interviewing for other roles that day, make sure to review the job description of the position you're interviewing for and collate your questions and information about each candidate.

You should also determine your interview panel. Ensure your panel reflects diversity, inclusion, and equality with people of various backgrounds, roles, and genders within your business. For example, your panel could include:

• An internal HR representative

• A third-party software recruitment consultant

• A senior member of your software team

Having a diverse panel will present you with fresh and unbiased perspectives of each candidate, supporting you in making the right hiring decision. It also highlights your brand as inclusive and unbiased, making the interviewees feel more comfortable.

During the interview, asking questions is essential to evaluate the candidate's soft and technical skills, qualifications, and experience. If you had given the applicant a task, such as fixing code for an application, this is also an opportunity to provide feedback on the task while asking the candidate to talk through their thought process. 

Once you've asked your questions, allow the candidate to ask questions about the role and your company. This will enable you to assess the applicant's eagerness while emphasising how your brand values the opinions of others and gives its people a voice.

The interview stage is also an opportunity to sell your brand further. During the interview, highlight your company's benefits and why the candidate would want to join your software team. Remember, this may not be the first interview the candidate has had, so you need to stand out and leave them wanting to be a part of your business. 

Remember, while the interview is the applicant's chance to make a first impression, it's also your chance to make a positive first impression of your business. Whether the candidate is successful or not, they should leave the interview with a positive impression of your organisation and the software team. The interview stage is one of the most critical parts of the hiring process to get right. It could be the difference between a software professional choosing your opportunity over a competitor.

By implementing these talent attraction tips into your software recruitment strategy, you can position your brand as a desirable workplace for top tech talent. Highlighting your employer brand, offering growth opportunities, providing competitive software salaries and compensation, crafting engaging job descriptions and ensuring an inclusive interview process are key to attracting and retaining skilled software professionals. 

Contact us today to see how we can raise the standards of your software recruitment strategy.