Proactive IT Recruiting Strategies for 2025

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While we never like to see people lose their jobs, my team expected that the mass tech layoffs of 2024 would make our work a little easier when it came to finding and recruiting skilled IT talent. We were wrong.

Hiring IT professionals remains tough, even as unemployment in the sector has risen slightly year over year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects more than 350,000 job openings annually in computer and information technology through 2033, which means the most competitive candidates will have their pick of lucrative positions to choose from.

The rise of AI and machine learning means that every company, regardless of industry, is now in the market to hire the best and brightest engineers, data scientists, and analysts to help them apply the latest technology to solve problems and sell products. Heading into 2025, companies must remain vigilant and committed if they want to recruit the best tech talent.

We asked our IT recruiting team to identify the biggest shifts they’re seeing in 2025 and what they mean for recruiters and hiring managers. Here’s what they said competitive employers need to do to win the best tech professionals now and in the decade ahead.

How to Attract Top IT Candidates in 2025

Step up your investment in tech

A survey of more than 800 IT professionals revealed that 43% of executives plan to expand their IT staff in 2025. Sixty-four percent said they plan to increase IT budgets, with generative AI being the biggest area of spending growth.

On the flip side, 54% of IT staff believe their own company is not spending enough to support technology needs, so whether you choose to allocate resources to IT projects, infrastructure, employee development, or all of the above, investing in technology makes a compelling case to candidates with an eye for what their future might look like as part of your team.

Competitive organizations are also moving faster, shaving down the amount of time they spend analyzing prospective investments and acting more quickly to deploy technology that will accelerate growth. If you want to attract the workers that will drive your business forward, you need to be enthusiastic and prompt with technology investment.

Let workers stay home

In 2024, massive tech employers like Amazon, Google, and Meta called workers back in-house with sweeping return-to-office policies. Unsurprisingly, workers weren’t thrilled. In the past year, my team has worked with a number of standout candidates who were leaving stable jobs because being in the office five days a week had become a deal-breaker for them.

Back-to-the-office mandates present a unique opportunity for smaller and more flexible firms to get ahead in the tech talent race. By offering remote and hybrid work and less micromanagement in general about where workers are and when organizations can attract skilled workers who may have previously been out of reach.

Consider the total package

According to a just-published survey from tech career hub Dice, an unprecedented 47% of technology professionals are currently seeking new roles. That’s up from 29% a year ago. While salary is still the number one driver of career changes, tech professionals are increasingly focused on prospective employers’ total compensation package–which includes non-salary compensation like benefits and perks–as well as professional growth opportunities.

While offering competitive salaries is still a must, companies can set themselves apart by optimizing the total package. Make sure your benefits plan is on point. Offer compelling perks that are useful and relevant to your ideal candidate persona. Prioritize employee development initiatives. Highlight these offerings prominently as a conversation point during the interview process.

Avoid job descriptions that box candidates in

It seems like every other week, I come across a job description with a requirement list, and it’s so long that it’s a wonder they find someone with even half of the skills. Of course, you want to be clear about the requirements of the role, and there are no doubt a few programming languages or pieces of software that will be essential to the job, but listing too many items can severely shrink your candidate pool.

If a candidate who’s otherwise extremely qualified sees one or more skills they don’t have on your list of requirements, it’s likely to deter them from applying. Additionally, suppose the recruiter who is screening resumes doesn’t have sufficient technical knowledge about the role. In that case, they may inadvertently rule out great and capable candidates whose resumes don’t exactly match what’s listed as a requirement. Take a critical eye on what’s included in your description, and make sure you distinguish between something essential to that job and something that would be nice to have.

Related: How to Write a Job Description

Recruit beyond hard technical skills

Whether it’s building technical infrastructure, defending the company against hackers, or finding ways to anticipate customers’ needs better, IT candidates do more than work behind computers: they create solutions to problems. Thus, you must screen for more than just a set of checked boxes on a technical skills assessment.

Staying competitive—no matter which field you’re in—means recruiting innovative IT candidates. You need leaders, thinkers, and creatives who can help you find new ways to harness technology to get things done in the context of your business.

Some of our favorite interview questions to use when talking with IT candidates are:

Tell me about a time you had to use technology to solve a problem in your last job.
How do you motivate a group of people to get things done?
What projects do you enjoy working on outside of your job?
How do you think technological advances will affect our industry in the next 5 years?

The goal is to identify candidates who are not only using their skills to solve problems now but who have an innate interest in how those skills will advance your industry in the years ahead.

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Craft a value proposition that matters to the candidate

In such a low-unemployment market, using the same generic value proposition for every candidate you’re looking to recruit isn’t effective, especially in the perk-happy tech world. If a candidate already works for a company with a ton of fringe benefits, your onsite gym and break room stocked with snacks aren’t going to be reason enough for them to consider jumping ship. Instead, shrewd recruiters will craft their value proposition to match the individual candidate, much like a candidate is expected to craft his or her resume to match the job they’re applying for.

To do this, turn to platforms like LinkedIn or the candidate’s personal website to see what kinds of things candidates list as their major accomplishments. This will give you a sense of what’s important to them.

A great example of this comes to mind from a recent hire. A candidate’s resume showed he was promoted from network architect to senior network architect in just over a year’s time. This was a great indication that he was an ambitious person who would likely see great value in opportunities to further advance in his career.

In our conversations with him, we highlighted the client’s commitment to promoting from within and laid out the company hierarchy, which showed several viable paths leading to the executive team. We were able to land an accepted offer thanks in no small part to our highly tailored value proposition.

Shift your perspective on recruiting “norms”

If you want to recruit modern candidates, you need to adopt modern IT recruitment skills. This may mean shifting your perspective on what’s “acceptable” during the hiring process.

Job hopping, for example, has become more common, earning millennials the title of the generation most likely to switch jobs. 21% of millennials, which Gallup defines as people born between 1980 and 1996, have changed jobs within the past year—more than three times the number of job changes among non-millennials. Job hopping is perhaps even more the norm in the IT field as candidates work to gain diverse skills and stay employed in the boom-or-bust startup landscape.

Once frowned upon (or at least not openly encouraged), poaching employees from competitors has also become par for the course in the competitive IT world. There is, however, a right and wrong way to go about it. If you find yourself in a position to poach, do it by coming from a place of education. Share information about your open position and the opportunity it presents—again, with a specific value proposition that caters to the candidate. If the candidate is interested in continuing the conversation, great. If not, no harm, no foul.

Accelerate your hiring timeline

Think about the biggest factors that impact your ability to hire. What comes to mind? Speed might not even make it onto your list, but it’s the factor with the second-largest impact on hiring results (number one being referrals).

Average time-to-hire numbers have increased by 50% since 2010, which means many employers have gotten all too comfortable with hiring at a snail’s pace. But slow hiring means more top candidates drop out of the running, are lost to competitors, and are less likely to accept offers than if your hiring process moved more quickly.

Case studies have shown just how valuable accelerating your hiring process can be to your recruiting efforts. In one such example, Nestle Purina implemented a talent pipeline strategy that resulted in 43% of positions being filled before they even became vacant. Taking a similar approach and hiring in advance of need—or at least working to make meaningful improvements to your average time-to-fill—can serve you well in landing top IT talent.

Find creative new sourcing channels

LinkedIn is a recruiter’s best friend, but some of the most promising IT candidates don’t even have a profile there. In light of this, you’ll need to expand your sourcing channels to include platforms where top tech talent is more likely to be found.

Take app marketplaces, for example. The iPhone App Store is a gold mine of application developers, UX designers, and UI strategists just waiting to be discovered. Similarly, there are dozens of other app marketplaces for different operating systems and devices out there, and likewise for platforms that catalog software, cloud services, and even electronics.

GitHub is another amazing resource for mining tech talent. Here’s one of my team’s secret IT sourcing tricks: identify talent with GitHub projects. First, use the platform’s search function to find projects involving your desired skills–machine learning, programming, or whatever you’re looking for. From the search results, click on any project to go to its dedicated page. In the Contributors section, you can see all of the tech professionals who worked on that project. Clicking on their profile will show you their skills, achievements, and, usually, their contact info, which you can then use to reach out.

Stay in touch

Did you know that 16% of Microsoft employees have more than one stint at the company on their resume? In the IT world, it’s not uncommon for employees to start their career at one company, leave for a few years to spread their wings, and then return to where they began, bringing with them new knowledge, skills, and perspective.

Take a proactive approach to capture these so-called “boomerang candidates” by staying in touch in the years after an employee’s departure from your company. Send periodic emails to check in and maintain rapport by sending birthday or holiday cards.

Additionally, it is important to understand why candidates leave in the first place. Is your pay failing to keep pace with the rest of the market? Do you lack advancement opportunities? Is poor management pushing people out? Institute a structured exit interview process for gathering feedback and analyzing it regularly to identify trends that could point to a larger organizational problem.

Enlist an IT Recruiting Expert

Recruiting the best IT talent is not easy, especially if you’re not tech-savvy or need to fill a niche role quickly. Choosing the wrong candidate can not only delay your operation’s progress but can lead to unnecessary turnover and increase hiring costs.

Instead of going through it alone, why not enlist the IT hiring professionals at 4 Corner Resources for your technology recruiting needs? We’ll take the lead on sourcing and screening top professionals for roles like systems administrators, network administrators, data architects, DevOps engineers, software developers, and more to fit your needs and budget. We’ll help you stay aware of industry trends and position yourself for success in the competitive IT market.

Ready to get started? Contact us to speak with one of our technology staffing experts today.