IT recruitment is a complex beast. Within a single industry, sector or discipline, you may find a wave of tech redundancies occurring alongside a wave of hiring.
When market disruptions happen, organisations can find themselves with a skills gap in certain areas and a surplus of people in others. Continually replacing people when work volumes pick up quickly becomes time consuming – and expensive. Without sensible planning, these disruptions can get hiring managers stuck into a cycle of over- or under-hiring.
Hiring too much or too little isn’t just a cost issue. Consider the impact that staff churn can have on employee engagement. Frequent redundancies within a department or a small organisation can have significant (if unspoken) effects on your team’s morale.
With strategic workforce planning, it’s possible to avoid this cycle. We’ll highlight ways to build an effective IT recruitment strategy that ensures hiring is targeted, efficient and effective.
Determine Role Requirements Carefully
When managing hiring costs is a primary concern, start by reviewing and defining what each role entails before going to market, even when it’s a replacement for an existing position. This helps you avoid hiring reactively. Take the time to identify the key responsibilities of the role and the business needs the role will serve.
A good rule of thumb is to build a case where at least 70% of the new hire’s time will be spent on core tasks, with the remainder allocated to meetings, collaboration, and admin. Working this out upfront can also help you identify whether a position could be offered part-time, or on a casual or contract basis.
Tap Into IT Contractors
Hiring IT contractors remains one of the most effective ways to remain agile in an unpredictable market. In fact, it’s virtually impossible nowadays to scale your workforce to meet project demand without a solid bench of contractors who can jump in straightaway.
Whether your focus is on growth or keeping costs down, hiring IT contractors gives you access to specialised and refined skill sets quickly. That way, you can deliver on critical work and gain some breathing space whilst you do groundwork for hiring permanent positions. For these reasons, contingent hires remain a critical element in strategic workforce planning.
Keep Your Talent Pool Warm
Every hiring process typically results in a shortlist of strong candidates. Even if they weren’t selected for the role, these candidates could still be great fit for future positions. One way to grow your future talent pool is to cultivate a relationship with them.
Consider staying in touch with almost-successful candidates through informal check-ins, such as coffee catch-ups or networking events. As an IT recruitment specialist, we can manage these relationships for you. When you need to hire a developer, product manager, or data specialist quickly, we already have a pre-qualified candidate in mind.
Devote Resources to Training
Externally focused IT recruitment is just one aspect of strategic workforce planning. With persistent or growing skills gaps in technology, upskilling of existing employees will become an increasingly important part of the equation.
Already a key driver in upskilling requirements, artificial intelligence will only become more critical in the coming years. As the World Economic Forum’s 2025 Future of Jobs report shows, 65% of Australian organisations have identified skills gaps as major barriers to AI-led transformation. Other research by Tech Council of Australia shows 32% of tech employers report a lack of skills as one of the top threats to their organisation.
Meanwhile, we’ve previously highlighted that 92% of IT jobs will see a “high or moderate transformation” due to advances in AI, with mid-level and entry-level positions undergoing the most change as a result of automation.
Upskilling your current teams helps the business stay adaptable and helps drive employee engagement. So, where do you start? Take a good look at what you can genuinely provide. You might have the in-house expertise to run training sessions, or perhaps mentorships will be the best fit in some cases. Peer learning could be the way to go, or you may need to bring in external specialists. Remember there’s no blanket solution for training – it’s best tailored to suit your team’s needs.
Access External IT recruitment Expertise
Without current intelligence on the jobs market, hiring managers can find themselves making decisions in the dark. Partnering with an IT recruitment specialist will give you more insight into the push and pull factors for data, software development and cyber security jobs.
We see up close the factors that attract candidates to new roles and what organisations are offering to get the best talent accepting job offers. With a reputable IT recruitment agency, you get factual data based on salary benchmarking and talent mapping, not opinions.
Get More Strategic Workforce Planning Advice
By implementing these strategies, you can avoid the costly cycle of over- or under-hiring, ensuring a more stable and efficient workforce. If you’re looking for expert guidance on tech recruitment, Exclaim IT is here to help. Operating in Canberra and Brisbane, we provide employers with actionable advice and support in finding the best talent for their teams. Contact us today to get started.
