How Companies Can Handle Technical Hiring When Internal Recruiters Cannot Assess Specialist Roles

Finding quality staff can be difficult. Finding technical staff can be even harder. As all businesses grow they will reach a point where they need to recruit specialists to increase capability. This could be a Cloud Architect to fix your server structure, a Machine Learning Engineer to deliver new features, or a Cybersecurity Specialist to look after your data. 

The issue with hiring for these roles is that, although your in-house HR and recruitment team are excellent at understanding your company culture, managing employee relationships, and assessing basic skills, they can struggle to assess complex technical skills. 

How will your non-technical recruiter know whether the candidate has advanced knowledge of Python or is simply using buzzwords? How will they know whether someone really understands Kubernetes?

Hiring will become a bottleneck, interview processes will become lengthy and poor hires will begin to occur. Additionally, your current engineering teams will become frustrated at having to interview people who do not fit.

Below is a guide to how companies can overcome these issues.

The Core Issue: Why In-House Recruitment Fails When Hiring Specialists

Understanding why in-house recruitment fails when trying to recruit technical staff.

1. Technology is Moving All The Time

Programming frameworks, Cloud platforms and security protocols are constantly changing and updating every few months. Your non-technical recruiter struggles to keep up whilst also doing their everyday role.

2. Resumes Are Full Of Buzzwords

Candidates know what keywords to put on their resumes to get past basic ATS systems and recruiters. Whilst the resume may state the candidate is an ‘expert’ in Microservices there is no way to verify this without a technical check.

3. Not Fully Understanding Requirements

Recruiters struggle to fully understand technical requirements. This means they will often send candidates to your in-house technical teams who do not match. This will waste valuable hours of your engineer’s time.

4. Using Generic Online Coding Tests

Many companies will opt to use generic coding tests. However, these often only test the candidate’s knowledge of memorising textbook algorithms. This can be frustrating for top candidates.

How To Tackle Recruiting For Technical Specialists

If your in house team isn’t able to assess deep technical questions then you need to implement some changes to your process.

1. Define Clear Technical Assessments

Before advertising any roles you should meet with your engineering lead and recruitment team. Ensure that you define clear skills that the candidate should be assessed on.

• Define Essential & Desirable Skills – Ensure that your recruiters know which skills are essential (2-3 skills) and which can be learnt.
• Use Behavioural Technical Questions – Provide your recruiters with simple, unscripted questions that ask the candidate to talk about their experience. For example “Tell me about a complex system you have built and the biggest performance issue you had to resolve”. This means that even your non-technical recruiter can tell if they gave a clear and structured response or if they were vague and evasive. 

2. Use Real World Assessments

Don’t use generic puzzle coding tests. These rarely show how someone would perform in a real world scenario. Instead you should use real world assessments.

• Take Home Projects – Ask the candidate to complete a mini project in under 2-3 hours.
• Paid Trial Days – Ask your top candidates to spend half a day with your technical team completing a small task.
• System Design Walkthrough – Ask the candidate to give you a walkthrough on how they would design a system to solve a real world problem.

3. Get Technical People Involved Early On

If your recruiters aren’t able to assess deep technical skills, then get your engineers involved in the early stages of the interview process. 

• Quick Technical Check – Ask one of your senior developers to complete a 15 minute technical check.
• Train Your Engineers – Just because your engineers are able to code doesn’t mean they know how to interview. Train your technical team on how to fairly assess candidates, ask the right questions and sell your company culture.

4. Work With An Experienced IT Recruitment Agency

Often the best option is to work with an agency who specialises in IT recruitment. This is because they will have the expertise to assess niche roles.

They will have recruiters who have technical backgrounds or specialise in certain areas of IT (DevOps, Cyber Security & Artificial Intelligence).

They will provide:

• Pre-screened Candidates – They will assess the candidate on their technical skills.
• Passive Candidates – Top technical specialists rarely look on job boards. As they specialise in certain areas they will have direct connections to talented individuals.
• Fast Hiring – As they already have networks and assessment tools in place they will be able to hire much quicker for specialised technical roles.

Long Term Solutions

If you are regularly hiring for specialised technical roles then reduce the guessing game and invest in building a better system.

• Build an In-House Question Bank – Ask your technical leads to document standard questions, answers and red flags to give to your recruiters.
• Cross Train Recruiters – Cross train your non-technical recruiters with senior developers. This will help them understand industry terminology by shadowing technical interviews.
• Constantly Review Feedback From Interviews – Track where candidates are dropping out of your funnel. If many candidates are failing at the technical interview stage then you may need to review your initial recruiter criteria.

Ready To Hire Top Tech Talent?

Recruiting and assessing technical specialists shouldn’t hold your business back.

At AIQU we simplify your tech recruitment. Whether you need permanent technical specialists, contractors or flexible solutions we have expert recruiters who can quickly supply you with quality top tier talent. We will handle the technical assessments so you can focus on growing your business. Contact AIQU Today To Find Your Next Tech Expert.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why do non-technical recruiters struggle to recruit technical specialists?

Technical specialist roles require deep knowledge of the industry, knowledge of ever changing frameworks and being able to assess practical skills. Non-technical recruiters will often rely on keywords on candidate resumes.

2. How can we assess technical skills without overworking our engineers?

Use targeted take home tests, quick 15 minute technical pre-screens or work with an IT Recruitment Agency to ensure they filter and assess candidates before they come to your engineers.

3. Are automated coding tests reliable?

Automated coding tests can help you to assess basic skills for entry to mid level roles. However, they often fall short for specialist roles. Senior roles require problem solving, system design and working with others, automated coding tests cannot assess these.

4. What are the main benefits of using an IT recruitment agency?

They will have existing talent networks, industry knowledge and technical assessments in place. This will mean you can hire quicker, reduce the risk of poor hires and allow your in-house HR team to focus on company culture and employee retention.

5. How can we ensure a good candidate experience while assessing technical skills? 

Ensure your assessments are clear, quick and relevant. Avoid lengthy tests that take days to complete and lengthy multi stage interviews. Ensure you respect the candidate’s time, communicate well throughout and ensure all technical assessments are relevant to real world work.