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How to Recruit Talent in a Hot Market: Everything You're Doing Is Wrong

Your old recruiting methods aren't going to cut it if you want to woo top IT professionals today. Here's what works now.

By Stephanie Overby

July 20, 2007 — CIO — The first quarter of this year saw the biggest net hiring increase in enterprise IT in more than five years, according to Robert Half's survey of CIOs. It's officially a seller's market for IT talent. Good news for IT professionals. Bad news for IT hiring managers.

A hotter job market combined with a limited IT talent pipeline means you have to be more proactive—and more sophisticated—in your recruiting methods, says Forrester's IT Staffing and Careers analyst Samuel Bright, who shares new tricks of the trade (including how to attract millennials, how to uncover a shadow market of IT recruits in the business, and how to expand your universe of IT professionals) from his recent report Recruiting IT Talent: Adjusting to a Hot Market.

CIO.com: Enterprise IT is experiencing the largest net hiring increase in five years. To what do you attribute that?

Samuel Bright: The skills needs of enterprise IT have become more specialized, and because many IT organizations do not have these skills in house, they have been forced to go out into the marketplace. Many IT organizations are trying to shift from technology-focused cost centers to business process consultants. That requires a new type of IT candidate possessing technical versatility, interpersonal skills and business knowledge. As client-facing roles (project management, vendor management and so on) have gained importance, CIOs dissatisfied with the ability of existing employees to step into these roles have started to look outward.

That creates what you describe as a "seller's market."

Consulting firms, outsourcers and vendors are the "buyers" of talent. The sellers are the prospects themselves who are offering themselves and their skills as talent. Because there is greater demand for talent, "sellers," especially those with highly sought-after skills, require extra wooing from enterprise IT leaders. They have more options and more leverage, and are pickier about their choices of employment. Compensation alone will not be enough to win over top-quartile talent or retain them once they join enterprise IT.

Are most IT organizations adequately prepared to market their positions in a way that woos these sought-after new hires effectively?

First of all, I think IT leaders make the mistake of marketing open positions specifically, without marketing the differentiators of working in their enterprise IT shops as well. Many CIOs are still searching for a silver-bullet solution to their recruiting problems. They do not understand that a hotter IT job market combined with a limited IT talent pipeline necessitates that IT leaders be more sophisticated and proactive in their recruiting practices, particularly in crowded geographic markets. And those who do understand the need for greater sophistication are, by and large, early in the thought process of determining how to brand their organizations to attract the talent they need.

 

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