The recent wave of big tech layoffs means some of the industry’s top talent are now looking for work. But after feeling like they were “burned by layoffs,” many tech workers are rethinking what they want their next career step to look like.

Some are leaving the tech industry altogether. Others have become far more critical of the job offers they receive — which means the technical sourcing process is harder than ever for recruiters and hiring managers.

You can’t just post open roles on LinkedIn if you’re looking to hire technical candidates. Read on to learn more about the current tech hiring trends and how you can cater to what these applicants want, so you can expand your network and fill technical roles.

1. Interview Technical Professionals to Understand What Candidates Want

Despite layoffs, technical talent is still in high demand. These candidates are regularly getting messages from recruiters, so they can afford to be picky.

Just take it from recruiter Tiffany Dyba. Dyba told the New York Times that she sent a competitive job listing to “about 75” qualified tech workers. She only got five responses — three of them were “No, thank you.”

So, how do you capture the attention of top tech talent and create a job offer that they won’t want to turn down? By talking to professionals who work in tech.

Start with your own team by distributing an in-house survey with questions about what they like and don’t like about the current employment package. Based on their answers, revise your job descriptions to highlight the benefits your employees love.

Or you can source feedback from a more public platform by posting a question on LinkedIn for technical professionals in your network. You can also use the built-in poll feature to ask multiple-choice questions.

Let’s say you ask your network a question like “Why did you leave your last job?” and most answers are about poor career advancement. You might revise your technical role job descriptions to emphasize the training and growth opportunities your company currently offers, like tuition reimbursement.

2. Emphasize Projected Business Growth to Ease Any Candidate Concerns

Financial analysts predict that the big tech layoffs aren’t over, so job security is top of mind for many technical candidates. In fact, more than 90% of tech workers surveyed by Hays expect to see business growth within the first year they’re hired by an organization.

Highlight projected business growth in your job description to reassure technical candidates — especially if you can’t compete with the salary and benefits of the top tech companies going through layoffs. Just take a look at Facebook. The industry giant offers software engineers salaries of almost $1 million a year. But Facebook also had to lay off more than 11,000 of its employees last year.

To put technical candidates’ minds at ease and entice them to apply, make it clear that the position with the business has a bright future:

• Be sure the job posting includes a company summary that provides an overview of recent growth and projections for the future, including details like customer growth and success rates.

• Highlight ways that the position contributes directly to company success to demonstrate the value and impact the role has on the business as a whole.

• Create an easy-to-reference document that contains specific information about the company’s past and future growth for hiring team members to use during interviews. Having facts and figures handy will make it easier to answer questions from technical candidates who might be on the fence about accepting an offer.

3. Tap into Employee Referral Programs to Expand Your Network

Current employees are in the best position to refer technical candidates because they know the applicant and the skill set that an open role requires. And Zippia’s research supports this. In its recent survey, 88% of employers confirmed that employee referral programs yield the best applicants. This is particularly beneficial for technical roles, which have more specialized requirements.

Run your employee referral program with your talent acquisition software. Covey empowers employees to highlight their own network connections and add more-qualified candidates to the talent pool. Recruiters can even source from employees’ networks, making it even easier to find top talent.

To help pre-screen candidates, it’s always a good idea to ask standard questions, like why the employee thinks their referral is a good fit for the role. But for technical positions that require specific skill sets, it’s also important to ask skill-based questions, like “What programming languages does this candidate have experience with?”

And incentivize employees to submit referrals by creating a rewards program. Typically, companies give employees a financial bonus if their referral is hired.

4. Use LinkedIn and GitHub to Meet Talented Tech Candidates

More than 95% of recruiting teams rely on social media for talent sourcing, so you probably already know how it can help you with hiring. But if you aren’t using tech-focused channels and messaging, you’ll be wasting your energy on an ineffective social sourcing strategy.

LinkedIn is one of the most widely used platforms for technical sourcing. Take advantage of this hiring channel and set yourself up for success by:

• Focusing outreach efforts on specific candidates, so you can dedicate your full attention to generating interest in the position you’re trying to fill.

• Keep the first message you send to a potential candidate short — just try to create a connection. Then send follow-up messages to schedule a meeting and offer more information on the job opportunity.

• Use LinkedIn’s affinity groups to find candidates with a combination of skills, experience, and personal interest in the type of work you’re hiring for. Say you’re looking to fill a data security position at a hospital. You might join a group with a name like “Healthcare Administration and Tech Professionals” to find members with the skills you’re looking for.

GitHub is also an important tech recruiting tool because so many qualified coders and developers are already using the platform and its forums to collaborate. Every user on the site has a profile that includes their job titles, links to their personal websites, and code they’ve published on the site. And because GitHub has a built-in search engine, it’s easy to narrow down your search based on the requirements you’re looking for.

5. Use an Augmented Sourcing Tool to Speed Up the Recruitment Process

Technical applicants are in high demand, so they expect a high-quality candidate experience — including prompt replies. Covey makes it easy to get through admin tasks, so you can follow up with applicants quickly and have more time to nurture qualified candidates.

Here are a few sourcing solutions Covey has to offer:

• Automating candidate communication, which helped Kumospace achieve a 20% applicant response rate.

• Building a candidate database that gives you insight into where applicants are as they move through the talent pipeline.

• Using Covey Scout to find candidates. Unlike the way search filters on traditional sourcing tools work, Covey Scout trains a bot to evaluate candidates the way you do. This saves you time from manually looking through every candidate's profile. This feature is especially important for technical roles with specialized requirements.

Just take the visual collaboration platform Miro. The company filled open positions five times faster once it started using Covey’s sourcing tool.

Master Technical Sourcing with Help from Covey

Covey speeds up technical sourcing by allowing you to set nuanced criteria to find the perfect applicant and customize the candidate experience. Schedule a demo to see how it can help you find technical candidates and fill open positions faster.