How to recruit IT talent despite skills shortages

Struggling to find IT talent? Even if it doesn’t really help things, know that you’re not alone. According to a German survey, 56% of companies in Germany currently have vacancies they can’t fill. In fact, not only is there a lack of skilled workers, there’s a general labour shortage in Germany.

And what can you do as an employer if the next generation isn’t enough? You could, for example, recruit skilled workers from abroad or expand your range of benefits for employees.

In this article, we explain what you can do to attract IT professionals, where you can find them, and how you can recruit and hire them.

We cover the following main topics:

• Skill shortages and the hunt for IT talent
• 5 steps of IT recruiting
• How to attract IT professionals to your company

Want to learn more about general talent attraction? Check out our article on how to attract talent in 2024.

Skill shortages and the hunt for IT talent

So why is there a skills shortage in some industries? It’s not just the IT sector that’s struggling. Construction, health care, and public services are all also experiencing a lack of qualified applicants.

There are various reasons for the current state of the labour market.

Firstly, the labour market is evolving due to demographic changes. In countries like Germany, the working population is getting older, and soon the baby boomers will retire.

As a result, more and more jobs are becoming vacant, and since there is a lack of young people, it’s becoming more difficult to fill them. In addition, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to fill the additional positions created by the growth of a company.

Second, and not insignificant, is the poor working and contract conditions for the vacant positions. For positions in sectors like health care and construction, attractive salaries are often not offered, and working hours are often not great either. An example of unattractive working conditions is, unfortunately, the nursing profession.

Other points that can be seen as causes for the current shortage of skilled workers include the pandemic-related increase in unemployment in some industries due to job switching to other industries, and constant changes in the technological skills that are in demand.

So, let’s take a closer look at IT recruiting and how you can still hire IT professionals, despite all of the above. In the following section, we summarise 5 steps to success when recruiting software developers, programmers, and the like.

5 steps of IT recruiting

So you’re looking for software developers and programmers to expand your IT team? In the following 5 steps, we explain how you can best achieve this:

Step 1: Optimise your job advertisement

The be-all and end-all in the search for talent is an adequate job advertisement. This should of course not only be correct in terms of content, but ideally include everything that makes you stand out as an employer.

In our recruiting and HR templates, you’ll find job-specific templates for job advertisements. In the Development category, you can easily find the right template for your IT jobs – from Web Developer to Data Analyst to DevOps Engineer. It’s all there!

There are five companies that have posted job advertisements for software developers and engineers with JOIN that we particularly liked. That’s why we’ve summarised these best practices for you in one article:

Here you’ll learn:

• Why a good job ad is important
• What you should do before writing it
• How to write a job ad (incl. checklist)
• Where to place your job ad

Step 2: Post on the right job board

Now that you’ve created or optimised your job ad, you’ll want to share it on the right job board or platform to reach the right software developers, engineers, or programmers for the job.

You could do this by creating a profile on the most popular job boards (if you don’t already have one) and manually posting your job ad on each platform.

Or, you could make it easy on yourself and just create one job ad that you can publish on several job boards at the same time with one click.

The job board jungle isn’t easy to sift through, but JOIN’s multiposting tool with integrated applicant tracking system (ATS) makes your IT recruiting much easier.

For example, with JOIN you can publish your job advertisements for IT talent on more than 10 job boards at the same time – free of charge!

If you want to take an alternative route to approach IT professionals, we also recommend publishing your job advertisements on niche job boards.

Niche job boards can have the advantage of being industry-specific, with an applicant pool made up of the target group you’re looking for. Unlike on generalist platforms, this means your job ad won’t get lost in the crowd as easily.

Three of our most popular IT job boards:

Job board #1: Jobs in IT
This job board of the JobsinNetwork focuses on the IT and tech industry. Here you can reach highly qualified international IT professionals for your company.

Job board #2: EuroTechJobs
EuroTechJobs is the one-stop shop to find experts in a variety of IT and tech disciplines across Europe.

Job board #3: ictjob.de
This niche job board makes the search for IT and tech talent even easier! The job board initially specialised in the Belgian and Luxembourg markets, but is now the largest German IT job search engine.

Other places to go could be job boards that focus on remote jobs. IT professionals are now used to working remotely, and only in rare cases is it necessary for them to come into the office.

This could also be an opportunity to consider hiring international professionals for your company, as your employees do not necessarily have to live in the same country as you.

On the top 3 job boards mentioned above, and many more, you can publish your job advertisement via JOIN with just one click.

Step 3: Communicate efficiently

So now you’ve created and optimised your job ad, published it on selected job boards, and reached top talent. By simply applying via JOIN, candidates can apply directly to you with just a few clicks.

Just uploading the CV is enough to apply and makes the whole process simple for all parties.

This way, you can quickly expect a few applications in your inbox to respond to. Smooth and efficient communication can be ensured by an applicant tracking system, where you can view and manage all applicants in one place.

Make sure when communicating with candidates that you pay attention to the target group and your own company culture.

Step 4: Quick reaction

You’ve made it! You are in contact with an IT professional. Ideally, you’ll communicate with your candidate and discuss the next steps in the application process.

In addition to communication at eye level, an important aspect is the speed of communication. Top IT professionals receive several enquiries from recruiters and active sourcers every day through various channels, and are spoilt for choice.

IT professionals are in greater demand than ever before, and the labour market in this sector is clearly an employee market. So be quick before someone else has already spotted the potential talent and hired them!

Step 5: The right interview process and easy onboarding

Part of speed and communication is, of course, the right interview process and easy onboarding.

In our interview process glossary page, you’ll find all the information you need on the different stages of the interview process – from types of interviews to making a final decision.

You’ll also learn how to make your interview process as fast, consistent, and efficient as possible, so you keep the great candidates you want and don’t lose them to the competition.

If the decision is positive on both sides – you and the candidate – and a new hire is made, the onboarding process should also be as smooth and straightforward as possible.

Ensure you convince your newly hired software developers and engineers that you are a good employer during their first days in the company!

How to attract IT professionals to your company

Attracting great talent to your company in times of IT skills shortage remains a struggle for now. However, with JOIN’s help, it’s possible to win this battle for IT staff.

As an employer, you have the opportunity to attract great talent – and differentiate yourself from the competition – by optimising your job advertisements, posting your job on the right job boards, communicating adequately with candidates, speeding up the recruiting process and optimising the interview process and onboarding.