Even when top IT talent remains essential for corporate success, the demand for these highly sought-after professionals clearly outmatches their supply – at least, the good ones.

This has been a long-time challenge for recruiters in various industries, and it doesn’t get better with time. Hiring IT professionals is a major challenge on its own these days; keeping them is an entirely different animal.

As the competition gets tougher in the job markets, it’s essential for recruiters and HR managers to find more creative and inexpensive ways of acquiring IT professionals – and also devise effective ways to retain them.

Here are 7 tips for recruiting IT professionals and keeping them:

1. Continuous Searching

Even when you do all you can to keep your employees happy and loyal, you should always keep searching for talent – and have a quality pool of IT professionals handy.

Why? According to a TEKSystems research in 2013, 54% of IT professionals have been found to actively search a new job at least once per week. So never doubt for a second that your best IT talent can ditch you for a greener pasture, while you suddenly start the process to fill the position all over again.

2. Great Employee Value Proposition (EVP)

Why would a job seeker want to work with your company? What does your ideal employee look like? What’s your company culture like? What are the rewards and benefits employees enjoy? Your answers are what becomes your Employee Value Proposition (EVP).

Being able to describe this clearly, and putting it out there in the face of prospective employees, will make you an ideal employment option for IT professionals – that’s if, of course, your EVP is truly attractive.

3. Almighty Recruiters

The place of recruiters can almost never be replaced in IT recruiting. Companies recruiting for IT professionals have come to be trusted by job-seekers; in fact, over 60% of IT professionals still consult with a recruiter while in the process of finding a job.

4. Social Media Advantage

Jobvite’s 2015 Recruiter Nation Survey reveals that 92% of recruiters use social media in the recruiting process. The reason isn’t far-fetched; the most qualified, talented, and largest pool of applicants are on social media.

Social media is just a must-have in your arsenal of recruiting tools. Good thing is; with time, social recruiting drastically reduces your hiring expenses – in addition to making you very attractive to IT professionals.

5. Speedy Hiring Process

How fast your entire hiring process is can determine how much you attract and secure top IT talents. No IT professional wants to fill long job forms, or wait infinitely to be interviewed…or to be contacted after an interview.
Speed is the new language of business, and more so in hiring. Shorten your overall hiring process or watch the competition rake the best hands – and brains!

6. Build (and Nurture) Great Relationships

“78% of recruiters find their best quality candidates through referrals. This is up from 60% in 2014. In the next year, 41% of recruiters plan to invest more in referrals.” – Jobvite, 2015.

To keep referrals coming in, you can use employee incentives like: monetary bonuses (most effective), company-funded trips, perks (food, activities, etc), and so on.

It’s all about maintaining great relationships with employees, recruiters, and other employers. Most companies find their best candidates from their social and professional networks.

7. Benefits, Rewards, and Promotion Process

Securing and keeping top IT talent – whether that is skilled app developers, web designers or programmers – is dependent on how attractive and beneficial your company is.

IT professionals need to feel valued and held in high esteem by employers. Rewarding continuous improvement, open communication, and job performance is a great way to achieve this.

Knowing individual employees’ needs and being able to offer flexible benefits is another way to make IT professionals feel valued as individuals, and thereby retain them for long.

IT professionals are truly a special lot, especially the best ones. Understanding this and treating them as such will help you secure and retain the best candidates in the industry. Follow the tips above, and you might just find IT recruitment very easy.

Kindly share your thoughts in the comments; I’d like to discuss further with you.