What would you do if your favorite developer suddenly gave you two weeks’ notice? Do you have your next move planned or will you start from scratch to find a suitable candidate?
Retaining top developers is a tough act. Especially now when the unemployment rate has plummeted to 3.6% as of April 2019, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The high employment rate is making the job market competitive and encouraging developers to join new companies more freely. If a developer is leaving your company, maybe she received better offers from elsewhere.
Then again, discerning recruitment managers are always looking to snap up great developers. LinkedIn analyzed its internal data to conclude that embedded software engineers receive the most number of InMails per person compared to any other profession in the entire continent. Concurrently, the IT (especially software sector) has the highest turnover rate among ANY industry.
There are two ways you can brace your company against competitive talent recruitment. One, be ready to beat your competitors’ offers. Two, let a remote recruitment agency help you build a talent pipeline of great software developers.
Why a Talent Pipeline Is a Necessity
A reactive decision to hire a developer can become costly.
Let’s recap what you’re contending with here:
- national low unemployment rate
- highest turnaround rates of any industry
- highly competitive job offers
If that wasn’t enough, here are two more barriers to your talent recruitment:
- Dev recruitment happens to be one of the most challenging HR tasks. According to CareerCast, it’s the toughest position to recruit for in the US.
- It’s also one of the longest. Glassdoor says it takes an average of six weeks to hire a dev.
Whether you’re piling on the work to other developers and burning them out, or it isn’t getting done – a six-week vacancy will disrupt any SME.
That’s why having a talent pipeline at the ready is essential.
But there are other reasons for actively sourcing top dev talents, like:
- If your company is growing at a steady pace or you’re in the talks to take on big projects or sign on multiple corporate accounts.
- If you want to reduce cold contacts and want to hire someone familiar with your company and its culture.
Think of a talent pipeline as hot leads – maybe those leads aren’t ready to do business with you right now, but might in the future. Actively building a talent pipeline is just as necessary.
Image: Turnover Rates
What It Takes To Build a Talent Pipeline
Another way building a talent pipeline is similar to lead generation is that it’s a continuous effort.
It requires planning and selecting strategies that work over the long term, such as:
- sourcing candidates
- selecting the talents who would make a good fit
- engaging with them over time
- sending them marketing collaterals that portray your “brand”
- communicating with them directly and keeping them interested
But it could be a lot more subtle, like:
- Finding out more about the candidates’ capabilities and whether they’d fit in with your company culture.
- Making sure they’re willing to make the move to your company without you giving an actual offer.
- Gauging whether they’ll be available when you need them.
Of course, the most tedious part of the recruitment process is sourcing the candidates. There are multiple methods, and HR recruiters constantly juggle them to find the right candidate, such as:
- getting referrals
- searching portfolio sites
- using Applicant Tracking Systems
- Search engines and professional/social media platforms
- meeting candidates at networking events
- searching development sites like GitHub
If you think that’s a lot – it is. It’s a full-time job. Nurturing a talent pipeline is a top priority for most recruitment managers, who work with a team to fulfill this responsibility.
Image: Nurturing Candidates
Why a Dedicated Recruiter May Not Be a Smart Choice for an SME
A big HR team will often have a few personnel who dedicatedly source and filter candidates for the future. As a small business, your needs are quite different.
While you have to keep in touch with qualified candidates, you may not hire a developer very frequently.
But as you saw in the above section, it’s a full-time, longwinded responsibility. Adding a person to take on this role means spending an extra $80,000/year for their salaries. And if you only hire a few candidates a year, it may not be a worthy investment.
Your second option is to choose only one method of sourcing candidates, such as an applicant tracking system, and shell out the monthly fees. ATS, like Skeeled, cost $400/month in subscription fees, even for the months you won’t be hiring. It also means your recruitment process is not optimized.
You could try sharing this as a project with different company managers. As in, managers and team leads keep their feelers out for when a candidate is available. Frankly, that’s a haphazard approach.
In small businesses, managers already wear numerous hats. Adding more duties—especially for a task that’s not always urgent—will mean it’ll eventually get shelved.
That’s why your best option is working with a remote recruitment agency.
How DistantJob Can Help You Build a Remote Talent Pipeline
As a top remote recruiting agency, keeping in touch with a highly-qualified talent pool is one of DistantJob’s most important roles.
Our candidates are skilled, experienced developers located all over the world. From coding skills to communication to cultural fit – the candidates in our talent pipeline are on par with (if not superior to) the best developers available locally.
We go to enormous lengths not only to source these candidates but nurture them over time so that when our clients are in need, these developers are ready to jump ship and join them.
We are adamant about finding the right fit for any open position. That’s why our collaboration periods with any client lasts a long time.
Here’s what makes our service method even more client-centric: we don’t charge you a finder’s fee. In fact, we don’t charge anything until the candidate starts working for you. This method is especially great for our small business clients whose needs are infrequent.
So, in light of building a talent pipeline for your business, what can DistantJob do for you?
You can start collaborating with us today, give us ideas about what sort of candidates you might need in the future, and we’ll do the rest. When you’re ready to fill a position, just let us know, and we’ll send handpicked, customized candidate selections your way.
And yes, all of these services are free of cost to you. Only when you hire a candidate we selected, should you pay us.
So, in actuality, you can retain the services of DistantJob without a fee. Could you think of a fairer deal or a better way to manage your resources?
Don’t let last-minute dev recruitment disrupt your business. Get in touch with us today and let us build a talent pipeline customized to your needs so that you’re ready to go when you have a vacancy.
