Looking for TOP IT headhunters? You’re not alone. Most executives of any tech business would agree that talented IT specialists make up the core of the high-tech industry. The main challenge is to find and hire such people among the available workforces. Hence, the question many tech leaders are asking is: “Who can help me select good software developers in the pool of talents?” In this article, I’ll write about IT headhunters & talent recruitment agencies, as well as how to choose an IT headhunter overseas for hiring senior developers.
IT Headhunters for Software Companies
Before discussing how to choose a headhunter, let’s speak about the real value of an IT recruitment agency. Sometimes the management board of a company doesn’t realize the real necessity of external recruitment services; however, that headhunter company just might come to the rescue in case you face IT talent shortage. They will provide you with access to a larger talent pool, hire senior developers, technical executives, or recruit a rare tech specialist.
These reasons brought People.ai, the American tech company that develops an innovative AI-powered platform for B2B sales, to Ukraine. To build an offshore development team, they ventured into opening their own R&D office in Kyiv. And within just one month, Alcor managed to lease and equip an office for them, hire the first engineers, as well as ensure total legal compliance and HR payroll management.
Outsource Vs. In-House Recruitment
On the one hand, in-house recruitment sustains your HR expertise that will be handy in the long run. It also creates a good candidate experience in the market. On the other hand, such a recruitment department requires a lot of time and investments to bring positive results. You’ll need to spend money on salaries & bonuses, pay for HR tools and ads, etc.
Therefore, with outsourcing recruitment services you can save costs and receive high quality at the same time. For instance, external technical headhunters in Ukraine and Poland have gained extensive experience due to a well-established outsourcing market there, thus they tend to do their job quickly and professionally. This leaves you more time and energy to focus on onboarding and IT staff training instead.
Types of IT Headhunters
The term IT headhunter is often used to refer to an IT recruiter. Their job is to the first source and then lead eligible candidates through the hiring pipeline. There are two major types of headhunters for IT professionals.
Temp agencies
These are employment agencies that fill positions of temporary jobs. Tech companies may use this kind of service to staff the team with junior specialists for a short-term project or support the development team with an additional workforce during busy periods.
Traditional recruitment agency
Traditional recruitment agencies work with vacancies for permanent roles. However, the cooperation model can be different. Companies that work with IT recruiting agencies on a contingency basis don’t pay for the services unless their vacancy is successfully filled. It works in case you want to engage multiple recruitment providers or use internal HR resources. Whereas if working on a retained basis, companies pay recruiters in advance, thus allowing them to work with your job openings exclusively.
Headhunter vs. Recruitment Agency
The first and foremost contrast between a tech headhunter vs. recruitment agency is that tech headhunters specialize in conducting IT executive recruitment of top-level specialists like Senior Programmers, Team Lead Developers, Architect Engineers, and Chief Technology Officers, while an IT recruitment agency might fill varying vacancies. Some tech recruitment firms combine general recruitment as a service (RaaS) and headhunting services to focus on senior and lead positions.
Another difference is that IT headhunting experts contact the right talent in IT who already work for another company and might not be looking to change it for now. The job of a headhunter is to persuade such programmers to join the client’s company. At the same time, IT recruiting companies tend to look for unemployed developers who are currently looking for a job. Sometimes, candidates even approach IT recruiters first. The job of a tech recruitment agency is to match the expertise of a developer with a client company and make the most attractive offer among competitors.
Moreover, if you opt for hiring an IT headhunter you will not benefit from the immediate participation of this specialist in the hiring process, as their job is to start a search for the best potential candidate for your vacancy. On the other hand, IT recruitment firms provide support from the first call with you until the last day of the candidate’s probationary period and even further.
How to Hire an IT Headhunter Offshore
If you’re looking for the best ways how to hire IT headhunters in Colombia, Poland, Romania, and other offshore locations, pay attention to such sources as recommendations, client review platforms, and social/mass media. Don’t hesitate to check industry groups on social networks for referrals or ask for recommendations yourself. It’s quite practical to reach out to a software company with a similar background and/or tech product, e.g. e-commerce, healthcare, fintech, or another software developer. They will share their own experience with particular IT headhunters from the country you are interested in.
The best platform with reviews of B2B providers is Clutch. It gathers not only valuable feedback on companies but also presents global industry rankings. For instance, if your intention is to hire an IT headhunter company you can look in the list of TOP HR and recruiting firms. It’s worth mentioning that these TOP lists on Clutch get updated frequently so that a user always receives accurate information.
How to Choose a Headhunter and Evaluate Potential Providers
Once having created a list of potential recruiting providers, software companies start the selection process to pick the best of them. I recommend paying attention to their expertise in the IT industry, level of service, and guarantees. The following questions will help you identify the most reliable recruitment provider.
How large is their database?
Compare their pool with the overall market volume. This will tell you about the capabilities of IT headhunters and your chances for success.
Do they have case studies?
Although most client companies might be protected by a non-disclosure agreement, there are some of them that an IT recruiting agency would love to showcase. Study its website to find case studies that demonstrate high-speed recruitment, excellent service, or brilliant hires that were essential in satisfying the client’s business needs.
Who will work on your vacancy?
The best way to fill a vacancy fast is to divide the hiring process between researchers and headhunters. While the former will source eligible candidates, the latter will provide HR interviews and pre-screening, thus bring results more efficiently.
How are candidates verified?
It’s important to check resumes, define soft skills of candidates, collect recommendations, and give test assignments. As a rule, recruiting specialists take care of this so that a client receives only qualified CVs to consider for the next interview stage (technical assessment).
How do you track the progress?
To keep abreast of the hiring process, communicate with your external IT headhunters frequently. A good practice is to have weekly reports with the number of available engineers, processed CVs, conducted interviews, etc. – to see the headway being made.
Do they charge a cancellation fee?
In other words, suppose you managed to hire an engineer by yourself; would the recruiting agency still charge you for their work so far? Usually, there are no fees for quitting if you work with IT headhunters on a contingency basis.
Is it possible to substitute a candidate after the hire?
If confident in their services, headhunter companies will provide warranties for the candidates they found for you. You should have a three–month guarantee period to substitute the candidate free of charge if he/she doesn’t meet your expectations.
Do they offer operational support?
Once you have the desired IT specialist in an offshoring location, you’ll need to employ them properly. Very few providers can offer an all-in-one-place solution to not only hire a software engineer but also manage HR payroll and ensure legal compliance. At Alcor, we hire developers for you and then help with operational management in Eastern Europe (legal & accounting support, real estate, IT infrastructure, etc.).
How to Establish a Profitable Partnership
A profitable partnership is born at the crossroads of the client’s expectations and the provider’s level of service. This means that both sides should contribute to achieve the desired goals. But can you claim that both are moving in the same direction? Let’s check.
TOP IT headhunters in Poland and Eastern Europe usually handle a comprehensive talent acquisition in IT sector. This process can be tailored to the client’s internal corporate procedures and includes:
1. Drafting the ideal candidate profile;
2. Creating the employee value proposition;
3. Launching the talent sourcing process;
4. Pre-screening eligible candidates;
5. First HR interviews;
6. Job interviews on the client’s side;
7. Preparing a job offer.
This model of cooperation is ideally supported by additional services like employer branding, legal compliance, accounting & employer of record solutions or relocation of IT specialists, etc.
Apart from this, pay attention to whether you give exhaustive information about your company. It’s highly appreciated if you share what tech product you develop, the technologies your team works with, as well as what business goals you all strive to accomplish. I also advise describing your corporate culture to tell your future developer more about the engineering team. IT headhunters in Eastern Europe need this information to promote your employer’s brand in the local market and attract the best talents.
Right from the start, give your job descriptions to an IT recruiting agency for estimation. It usually takes 3-4 weeks to hire a regular software engineer of middle-senior levels, but the real time depends on the market. Professional IT headhunters will articulate possible challenges and suggest an appropriate hiring strategy according to the current situation in the local labor market.
Hardly anyone questions the necessity of proper individual support. This can be gained with the help of a dedicated account manager provided by your recruitment agency in Ukraine, Poland, or Romania. Thus, no need to contact several people for your queries – just keep in touch with one person to receive all updates.
Everything You Need to Know About the IT Talent Pool in Eastern Europe
According to the latest analysis by the IT Ukraine Association, the Ukrainian tech talent pool comprises 285,000 specialists. In Poland, there are over 400,000 developers, while in Romania this number is now around 160,000. The Ukrainian IT industry is growing annually by 20%-30% and around 25,000 engineering professionals graduate from Ukrainian universities each year. Poland graduates over 15,000 developers and is known to have the 7th strongest IT industry in Europe. In Romania, there are over 27 tech universities that graduate 10,000 IT specialists annually and one of the largest IT sectors in Central & Eastern Europe.
Discover the specifics of software outsourcing to Ukraine!
Eastern Europe is the #1 outsourcing destination in the world for companies that look to hire qualified remote developers. Moreover, if comparing the JavaScript, React.js, .NET, UX Designer, or COBOL developer salary in different countries, you will see that Poland, Romania, and Ukraine offer the most affordable developer compensations in the CEE region. Not to mention that the income tax for programmers that register as private entrepreneurs in Ukraine is only 2%-5%, in Poland – 8%-14%, while in Romania there is no personal income tax for developers.
The most efficient and secure way to hire developers in the CEE region is via a professional recruitment services provider like Alcor BPO. Talents’ hunters in our IT recruitment agency can recruit senior/lead programmers even with the rarest skills in Poland, Romania, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia. You can outsource to us not only IT executive recruitment but also the whole recruitment process – from candidate screening to job offer preparation.
Along with IT recruitment, we can also take care of your developers’ salaries and taxes, comply your business operations with both the laws of your country and that of your coders, and even deliver additional services like M&A deals support. We always go the extra mile for our clients.
Final Thoughts
Foreign tech companies evidently cannot always deal with a thriving IT labor market alone. Yet to hire the best headhunters, you must consider their professionalism and service level. At Alcor, we are ready to hire exceptional IT talents and provide comprehensive business navigation in Eastern Europe for you.
FAQ
1) What is an IT headhunter?
A tech headhunter is a person or organization that conducts executive search for top-level IT specialists for tech companies. They often look for perfect candidates among already employed IT specialists but don’t participate in the hiring process. Among tech headhunters are temp agencies and traditional recruitment agencies that work either on a contingency or a retained basis.
2) When is it worth investing in a tech headhunter?
It’s reasonable to cooperate with an IT headhunter when you need to hire senior, lead or executive software engineers with rare skills. Beyond that, you won’t have to form an internal recruitment department if you work with outsourced tech headhunters. In this way you could save many thousands of dollars and much time.
3) How are IT headhunters different from tech recruitment agencies?
First of all, tech headhunters specialize in filling top-level development positions in the client company, while professional IT recruitment agencies might hire different levels of IT specialists. Secondly, IT headhunters search for perfect candidates even among happily employed specialists, while recruitment agencies go for tech professionals who are looking for new job opportunities. Find out about another difference in this article.
✅ 4) How should you choose and cooperate with an IT headhunter in the most effective way?
You should first do research using recommendations, client reviews, social networks, and platforms for B2B vendor reviews like Clutch. Moreover, pay attention to the level of their expertise, scope of services, guarantees, case studies, and other aspects that we discuss in this article.
5) What is the best location to hire developers via headhunters?
One of the most beneficial regions to hire professional programmers is Eastern Europe, namely countries like Poland or Romania. In Poland, there are 400,000+ developers, and in Romania almost 160,000. All of them have the most attractive developer salaries and personal income taxes in the CEE region.