This is Part 2 of our two-part series, “How to Effectively Engage Modern Tech Candidates.” Read Part 1: Protecting the Quality of Your Database.
Best Tech Candidate Engagement Practices
As you probably know, demand for tech talent is as high as ever. Technologists with a wealth of experience often have the luxury of choosing between opportunities. This means that if you want tech candidates to respond to outreach for your open positions, you need to meet their expectations to effectively engage them (check out Dice's eBook on how to effectively engage tech professionals for even more info). Here are some of the best practices for engaging tech professionals in the modern industry landscape.
Make Your Outreach as Relevant as Possible
As tech candidates receive emails and phone calls from numerous employers, they can select the offers that are most relevant to their career interests and goals. That’s why it’s imperative to thoroughly review their profiles and carefully target your preferred candidates before you engage. On the Dice platform, for example, each candidate profile must include at least five skills, a resume, current location, job type preferences, name, and work authorization. You’ll have abundant information at your disposal to see a candidate’s experience and career trajectory. Consider:
- How closely their skills align to your opportunity
- What kind of company cultures they have been a part of
- How their roles have (or have not) expanded over time
- How your opportunity meets their career path
- Whether the salary and skill development you’re offering aligns with what they’ve had previously
Engage Tech Professionals, But Respect Their Privacy
Personal data security has risen to the top of concerns technologists have about joining online platforms. They don’t want to share their information and then get overwhelmed by emails from recruiters—especially ones who don’t take the time to ensure the offers are relevant. Today, tech candidates want control of their personal information.
Dice now makes it easy for you to respect their wishes through our Dice Private Email solution. When candidates decide to make their profile visible on Dice, we automatically replace their personal email with a Dice-generated email that looks similar to abc-123-xyz@mail.dice.com and is unique to every employer. Your emails will still be delivered directly to their inbox, candidates can respond just as they always have, and you can download the Dice-based email address to your ATS. The only difference is how the email looks and that candidates will feel more secure.
At the same time as we help you respect their privacy, we also deliver advanced metrics on your email outreach. We can share reports that give you actionable metrics to help generate responses faster than the competition. Dice email reports will help you optimize your messages by showing your engagement rates compared to other staffing companies, the percentage of messages that are mismatched to candidates’ interest, and which recruiters in your company send the most effective emails. With improved targeting and respect for privacy, you can meet the expectations of technologists on dual fronts.
Build Trust in Your Employer Brand
Presenting relevant opportunities to tech candidates is only part of the solution; you also need to position your company as the kind of place they’ll want to work. If you want them to respond, they need to be able to envision themselves working there. A few ways to do this are:
- Move beyond required skills. Let them know what kinds of projects they’ll build and problems they’ll get to solve. What is the impact they can make?
- Share your company culture. They want to know about the team they’ll work with. Is your company collaborative? Agile? Will they spend more time in meetings or building interesting solutions?
- Share opportunities to grow. Technologists want a learning curve. Can you share examples of new technologies and methodologies the team has learned in the past year? How will they be rewarded for reaching new levels of technical depth?
Additionally, Dice is working toward a new solution called Recruiter Profile that will show tech candidates your reputation in the industry. By sending relevant opportunities, respecting privacy, and working to build trust, you can ensure your Recruiter Profile will attract your preferred candidates.
