Get Lucky: 4 Ways to Fill Your Software Developer Talent Pipeline

Employment projections by the Bureau of Labor Statistics predict a total of 189,200 job openings for software developers by 2030. With demand for software development talent ramping up, tech organizations are in fierce competition to attract and hire the best talent.

The software developer shortage won’t come as news to you, but maybe this will – sometimes the solution isn’t a lack of candidates, but your own hiring process. 

In the extremely competitive tech landscape, how do you make your organization stand out and be more appealing to high-quality tech talent? More importantly, how do you get candidates to stay for the long-term? Here are four effective ways to fill up your software development talent pipeline.

1. Correctly evaluate skills

Tech recruiters are always looking for the candidate with the right skills for the position. Unfortunately, other judgments may pop up during the process causing you to not see things clearly. For example, an unconscious bias related to their gender, race, age, or religion could affect your decision-making skills.

One way to overcome this is by using a technical skills test. Instead of going simply on opinion, present each software developer candidate with a test related to the position to see what they can do. Remember in every situation to look at what they can do beyond your first impressions.

Leveraging recruitment automation tools into your recruitment process can also streamline time-intensive tasks that don’t require human judgment. According to a recent survey, 80% of 400 HR leaders believe AI’s role in recruitment will become more significant in 2022, particularly in candidate screening, onboarding, and competency assessment. They’re probably right.

However, AI has its own risk of bias, thus depending on it wholly to evaluate candidates is not recommended. The best path to accurate skills evaluation is a blended approach of technology and human knowledge. AI doesn’t replace that distinctive human element in recruitment, but it certainly speeds things up and helps filter down a large pool of applicants into a short list of highly qualified candidates.

2. Stop focusing so much on fitting into your culture

Yes, you want to hire software engineers and developers who will fit into your team, but that doesn’t mean they need to be exactly like everyone else. Part of culture is blending in people with different backgrounds and personalities and making it work with the larger organization. Focusing on a specific type can lead you to overlook qualified talent.

Prioritizing culture can also inadvertently lead to exclusionary bias. Indeed, increasingly, diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) are big driving factors for workers when choosing their employers. To set themselves apart, tech recruiters can show that their culture is flexible, and showcase that their organizations have active and developing DEI initiatives.

Best of all? According to Deloitte, employees working for DEI-driven companies are 20% more engaged, translating to better satisfaction as well as increased efficiency and productivity. And they are 87% less likely to leave and more eager to grow along with their companies.

3. Make it about the relationships

Forget your focus on the transactional aspect – they want a job and you have a job – and focus more on how to build a relationship with the candidate. By making it more about them, you’re giving them a better experience and increasing their interest in working for you.

Once the pre-screening, initial evaluation, and skills tests are done and you’re left with a short list of high-quality software developer candidates, how do you keep them interested in your organization for the long haul? The answer is quite simple: make it about the relationships.

According to a survey, 95% of candidates say there’s a direct correlation between how organizations treat them as candidates and how they will be treated once they’re hired. A good candidate experience, therefore, is critical to building a loyal workforce.

Recruiters and managers can start building relationships with potential hires through the entire recruitment process. Listening to interviews, conveying the company’s long-term goals, implementing timely communication, and identifying a candidate’s own career goals are just a few things managers and recruiters can do to nurture relationships with their candidates.

4. Work With Smoothstack

Smoothstack helps companies build excellent software development teams by hiring software, cloud, and data engineers as W-2 employees – prior to upskilling them to client/award specification. This means that we train devs specific to the tech stack and project needs of our clients, so they are ready to go on day one. A trusted partner with large government, public, and private organizations, we deliver top-notch talent, low project turnover, high predictability, and reliability through proprietary selection and immersive training. Smoothstack software engineers create the products and services that transform our world for the better.

We have a sustainable and scalable supply of software developers and other skilled IT talent and we can deliver without the usual time-wasting frustrations. Our tech talent recruiters can fill your pipeline with the ready-to-perform talent you desire, fresh from an immersive training program designed to mirror your existing stack.

Our model includes a 14-week intensive development and training program for software developers and architects that is built to our clients’ needs. At the end of the program, successful candidates attain 2-3 years real industry experience. This makes them job-ready from the day they are deployed, ensuring there are no gaps in the company’s tech talent pipeline.

Connect with Smoothstack to learn more today!