Most Common IT Recruitment Issues and How to Solve Them

Last Updated on 2025-02-27

Recruiting great people is critical to the success of your growing company, but recruiting great tech talent comes with a long list of challenges and issues. Before hiring an IT expert, let’s take a look at the most common IT recruitment issues and some practical tips to solve them. 

While competing for tech talent is nothing new, the demand for skilled IT professionals in the United States has vastly outstripped the supply of qualified workers. Whenever there’s a talk of skills shortages, you can bet that the IT sector will be front and center. That said, when you’re looking to hire new tech talent, there are always going to be some problems that arise.

Common IT Recruitment Issues Faced by Tech Companies

Here is an overview of some well-known IT recruitment challenges that business owners or recruiters face.

1. Motivating passive candidates 

Finding the right candidate is akin to dating someone. With an unemployment rate of about 1.5% across the tech sector, quality developers are very hard to come by. Candidates with sought-after IT skills are often wooed with multiple job offers from potential employers. Since they have several recruiters in their inboxes, your email needs to stand out from the competition.

Solution: 

Don’t just send a generic email when approaching potential candidates. Put some effort into crafting your email and explain why they should consider joining your team. 

Keep it short and focus on what’s most likely to get their attention. You’re just trying to land a conversation at this point, so less is more. If you can connect it to their interests or background, you’ll get a better response. For example:

“Hey John, I’m Pete. I started Fintegrate to help families pull all aspects of their financial lives together so they can control their financial destinies. I’m hiring senior engineers to take the company to the next level, and with your fintech background, I think you’d be a great fit. Open to scheduling a 5-minute intro chat to explore further?”

2. Top-tier candidates will demand higher salaries

Hiring experienced IT professionals is not only hard to do, but it also comes at a steep price. The law of supply and demand dictates the quality of candidates you can expect. Offering competitive compensation is one of the best ways to attract candidates with the right skills you’re looking for. So, how do you offer the best pay for top applicants?

Solution:

First, compare the average salary rates of IT professionals in specific IT positions and geographic locations. Websites such as Payscale, Glassdoor, and Indeed are virtual goldmines for stat nerds who want to learn about salary information and employment trends. 

In addition, compensation is not only about salaries. In the current environment, $30-50K signing bonuses are increasingly common for US developers. Compensation may also include perks like a work-from-home setup, generous vacation leave, transportation allowance, etc. Make sure to consider all aspects of compensation (including perks) when offering the best compensation package to applicants.

3. Hiring too soon or too late

Recruitment teams need to hire as fast as possible because the longer a position stays vacant, the more it will cause delays in operations, costing companies more money. This scenario pressures recruitment teams to hire quickly, which leaves them less time to vet candidates thoroughly. 

On the other hand, taking too long to hire could result in a lack of qualified applicants. A lengthy hiring process or the decision makers taking too long to decide will most likely force applicants to accept job offers elsewhere. 

Solution:

The best way to deal with these challenges is to assess your current hiring process. Is it necessary for candidates to go through several stages? Are there processes that cause bottlenecks along the way? At Full Scale, we receive around 1,000 applications every month, so we’ve automated and streamlined 80% of the vetting process:

• An automated response instructs applicants to complete at least 3 certifications
• If they score high enough to qualify, they’re instructed to schedule an initial interview with our senior technical leaders

All communication and scheduling are automated and move as quickly as the applicant chooses to complete the steps. 

We make the recruitment process as painless as possible so that top applicants can start immediately and our recruiters can fill vacancies quickly, too. 

Where you look for prospects and how quickly you communicate with them also matter. Ensure that you’re using the right platform to find qualified people and communicate their progress at every stage of the application. Additionally, use the appropriate keywords and recruiting metrics on your Application Tracking System so you don’t unfairly eliminate potential candidates.  

Still, some roles are just hard to fill, so you must exercise patience and set the right expectations from the start. Clarify to the hiring team a realistic timeline and stress the importance of hiring meticulously as bad hires can be disastrous in the long run. 

4. Cultivating an employer brand

An employer’s brand is the image it exhibits to attract candidates. It includes how it promotes its workplace culture, salaries, benefits, career growth, etc. 

While employer branding is not the only criterion for determining the success of an IT talent acquisition, it can make a huge difference in recruiting and retaining talent. 

Gone are the days when candidates don’t know what it’s like to work for a company until they’re already employed there. People turn to social media and review sites to see if companies engage and treat their employees right. How can you create an upstanding image that attracts the right people to your company?

Solution:

Instead of worrying about how you appear to potential candidates, focus on delivering the best workplace experience for your existing employees. Employees can be your best PR officers as they’ll provide positive reviews for you if they feel that their careers are taken care of. 

While the marketing team is primarily responsible for your brand, they should collaborate with the recruitment team. The former can work on delivering the brand message on your digital platforms, while the latter can nail down the features that will be attractive to candidates. 

Based on the company’s common goal, the two teams can brainstorm together to present a company brand that’s professional, friendly, and a great place to work. 

5. High turnover rate

Since the Information Technology sector evolves rapidly, a high turnover rate is quite common. Turnover is the process of replacing an employee with a new one. 

While you can’t always stop people from leaving, a high turnover rate can put business operations off track. It can extend the amount of time needed to fill the open position. Also, this will impact the other team members’ productivity and morale when they see more people leaving. 

Solution:

The single best way to reduce turnover is to hire people who are passionate about the company—whether its mission, technology, or the people it works with. Employees who believe in what they’re doing and who they’re working with are far less likely to leave.

Beyond that, issues that impact retention include career growth, feeling recognized and appreciated, and compensation. If you want to keep great people, you need to keep all of these factors in mind. 

Hire Developers With Full Scale

In summary, you can minimize or prevent these IT recruitment issues when you take proactive measures to solve them. But the reality is that some businesses have a limited budget and time to recruit candidates in-house. 

So, who can help them with such challenges? Short answer: Full Scale has helped dozens of clients hire hundreds of developers, testers, and leaders. It’s what we do. 

At Full Scale, we take care of the entire recruitment process, from selection to testing to onboarding, so you don’t have to! Contact us today to get your FREE consultation.

Scale Your Development Team With  Full Scale Now