The Right Messaging to hire the Best in Tech

If there’s one thing that top tech talent hates, it’s seeing inboxes flooded with generic recruiting emails. With the tech unemployment rate at 3.0 percent in the third quarter of 2015 (compared to 5.2 percent for the U.S. labor market overall), the collective hunt for top talent is fiercer than ever, with companies offering fantastic salaries and perks to candidates with the right mix of skills. That also means candidates can face a flood of poorly targeted recruiting messages.

Recruiters, looking for ways to stand out from that deluge, have found that personalized messaging is the key to hitting a response-rate goal and generating a healthy list of tech pros with the right skills. But who has the time to sort through social profiles and code depositories, find the right candidates, and craft must-respond messages?

If you’re recruiting on behalf of a company, you can tailor your initial message to spark the candidate’s curiosity, by describing some in-development project relevant to the candidate’s interests. Sending the job description comes later; the point of the initial contact is to form a human connection and start the conversation. (For those companies that operate projects in secrecy from outsiders, describing the fascinating problems that staffers tackle will often achieve the same ends).

When it comes to reaching out to tech pros, email is the best method of first contact; messages should be short and get right to the point. After that, depending on the candidate’s preferred method of communication, you could even move to social media. The communication gets even easier if you are using a modern Talent Acquisition Platform like SmartRecruiters, where all communication with candidates is centrally stored. You can access all messages you exchange with your candidates, avoiding repetitive emails and increasing candidate engagement.

Learn more about these and other tips to prepare recruiters for engaging across the spectrum of active to passive candidates with Dice’s The Definitive Guide to Engaging Top Tech Candidates e-book. It includes practices and checklists that make personalization possible, even in the face of a dozen (or more!) requisitions.

Ready to start hiring the best tech talent?

Besides great communication, one other thing that tech talent loves is Dice, where they can find the best tech jobs and the latest tech news. With its seamless integration with SmartRecruiters, you can start posting jobs to Dice with one click, and get millions of qualified tech candidates at your fingertips.

Access Dice’s page on the Marketplace and make Dice a part of your hiring success today!

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This article was written by Nick Kolakowski, who is a senior editor for Dice.com, which delivers the opportunities, insights, and connections that technology professionals and employers need to move forward in their careers.

All images featured in this blog post are a courtesy of Dice.com.