Struggling to recruit the right digital talent? You’ve probably heard by now that there is a digital skills shortage, but did you know that we also tend to widely overestimate our digital capabilities? An international survey conducted by ICDL showed that even countries with highly digitally developed populations lack essential skills; “In the study conducted by OCG in Austria, 94% of participants described their skills as “average” to “very good”, but only 39% of them achieved a corresponding test result. In Singapore, 88.5% of participants rated their general digital skills as ‘fair’ to ‘excellent’, but only 55% achieved that level.”
It’s just like riding a bike! But you had to learn how to cycle, didn’t you?
It seems that because we all have mobile phones glued to our palms, we assume we must be digital natives! But knowing the perfect emoji to stick on your Instagram story is not that same as mining through spreadsheets of data or tweaking a website’s code. The truth is that no one is intuitively born with digital skills. They must be learnt like any other skill. Furthermore, with business technology constantly being updated, keeping up with the unyielding march of technological progress is an ongoing challenge. With this “digital fallacy” being so persistent, how does an employer successfully hire talent with the right digital skills? As a recruitment company which specialises in digital talent in Ireland, you can be sure we have a few tips to share!
4 recruitment tips to build your dream digital team
1. Determine precise skills to target in your job ad
Let’s assume for a moment that you are looking for a digital marketer to join your team. You know that they’re the people to get you noticed online, engage with your online customers, generate leads and keep your website up to date. This is not a bad place to start, but if you want to make the right hire for your company then you’ll need to get a lot more specific about what you need. Marketers come with different levels of experience and while they might have skills in many different areas, chances are they’re more proficient at some than others.
That being said, full-stack marketers do exist. They’re that unicorn marketer that can do it all – social media marketing, email marketing, paid advertising, analytics, content creation, coding, SEO, copywriting, PR, customer service, landing page optimisation, in-product marketing and storytelling. The question is can you afford them in the current competitive climate? And even if you can afford them, they can’t do all this every day for you! After all, they are just one person and science has already proven that multitasking kills productivity. The key here is to refine your job advertisement so it attracts someone with the precise skills you need rather than a jack-of-all-trades.
2. CEOs need to be digital leaders
The strength of customer buying power may be a powerful driving force behind technological progress but so too is employee expectations. According to Deloitte researchers, 80% of employees want to work for a digital leader. This is so important to the modern employee that many would consider moving on within a year if they found the company wasn’t digitally aligned. It makes sense given that everyone these days is looking to create a sustainable career for themselves in an increasingly digitised world. If a company looks as though they are not keeping up with the pace of change, then it’s only a matter of time before they are left behind, and no one wants to be on that ship when it’s sinking!
Digital transformation comes from the top; therefore, it is the smart CEOs prerogative to be a digital leader. They must be the one to share the company’s vision so that management has the ammunition they need to provide employees with the learning opportunities they crave. If digital skills are championed at the top of the organisation, then it gives digital talent a true purpose in the company and provides them with room to grow. Not only will you attract the right talent with this strategy, but you’ll retain them long-term as well.
3. Have a smooth recruitment process (aka act quick!)
In Ireland, it is no secret that employment rates are high at the moment and that digital transformation is at the top of every CEO’s agenda. It goes without saying that competition is fierce for companies looking for people with digital skills, which is precisely why you can’t dawdle during the recruitment process! The average person applying for a digital job right now will already be employed and picking between multiple offers. Don’t believe us? Just set up a fake LinkedIn profile and pretend to be a UX specialist on the hunt for a job. You’ll see the offers come rolling in in no time at all!
That’s why you need to take a hard look at your recruitment process and find opportunities to tighten it up. How long does it take for an application to receive a reply? Is that reply in the form of a direct message, email or phone call? How long will the applicant have to wait for an interview? How many people do you plan to interview? How long will it take you to interview them? And the most important one, what is the total time between a successful applicant’s initial contact to the moment that they are offered the job? It is vital to streamline this entire process as much as possible, otherwise your competition will swoop in and steal your candidate without you even realising it’s happening!
4. Use a specialist recruitment agency, like Connexus Recruit!
Did you know that we are experts in identifying high-calibre talent for digital roles? At Connexus Recruit, we don’t just sit back and wait for interested applicants to apply. Instead, we actively headhunt passive talent, who are already employed and great at what they do. We will find you the individuals with highly developed skills and buckets of experience because they are the ones who will hit the ground running when they arrive in your workplace.Get in contact with us today and we can start to connect the dots between you and your ideal candidate!
