Hiring employees is not a tough job, but looking for the right talent and judging whether a particular candidate will be suitable for a role requires specialized skills. Of course, specific universal skills are needed to hire an employee regardless of the position. However, it gets trickier when you are looking to hire for technical positions. Such roles require a tailored process to vet the ideal and qualified candidate. Many companies are facing issues in finding the right technical hiring manager that helps them to vet top talent. 

Usually, not all recruiters have technical skills, so it becomes challenging to evaluate a technical candidate when they don’t have enough knowledge.

But there is a way through which non-hiring managers can evaluate candidates from technical backgrounds. They have to take care of certain things, but before we dive into that, let’s see who is the technical recruiter and what exactly they do.

Who is a Tech Recruiter?

A tech recruiter is only responsible for hiring tech talent in a company, like a coder, software developer, tech architect, or analyst. The duties of tech hiring managers include sourcing, filtering, screening, giving offers, and setting up interviews with candidates. 

Tech hiring managers must also be up-to-date with the changing technology trends, and skill requirements and learn to network with developer communities. 

Tech recruiters are valuable in today’s scenario because most companies are turning digital, and thus, they require tech talent. 

How to Evaluate Tech Skills in a Non-Technical Hiring Manager?

When hiring a non-technical recruiter, focus on asking the right questions to the candidate in the first round. Also, check if their interest lies in technical products and trends. 

Some of the things that will help you with this detailed evaluation are:

• Ask Them a Few Basic Technical Questions
• Ask them whether they know what is going on in the technological world. For instance, you can ask about everyday topics like AI or Automation. See whether they are aware of the discussions around such topics. It is okay if they do not know how to program AI software, but knowing about specific tools will help you understand their potential.

• Talk to Them About Their Core Interests

Having a conversation with them about what they like to read in their free time or what kinds of accounts they follow on social media will give you a peek into their personality.

Vetting this is essential as some candidates are not interested in the tech field at all. So, there is no point in hiring someone whose interest doesn’t align with the role.

• Check Past Experiences

Asking your non-technical hiring managers about what companies they worked for and which candidates they hired will give you a fair idea about their skill sets.

For example, a recruiter who worked at a fashion magazine cannot pick up the nuances of a technical hiring process compared to a recruiter who has worked at a digital marketing agency. 

• Evaluate Their Soft Skills

Soft skills like interpersonal communication, collaboration, and understanding employees are essential. Ask them to share their best or worst experiences working in their previous companies.

Also, ask them why they are leaving their previous company or joining a particular company, as these things will give you an insight into their decision-making process.

• Ask for Specific Examples

During the interview, ask the candidate to provide examples of projects they have worked on or technical challenges they have faced. Ask them to describe their approach to solving the problem, the tools and technologies they used, and the outcomes they achieved.

• Use Behavioral-based Interview Questions

Behavioral-based questions can help you assess a candidate’s problem-solving skills and how they approach technical challenges. For example, you could ask them whether they use any tools to source candidates or not.

You can even ask them whether they use automation or software in their workflows. Knowing this will help you understand whether they are tech-savvy and if they will be able to pick up technical recruiting for your company.

Once you select a candidate, please encourage them to learn and be aware of the field.

How to Encourage Your Non-Technical Recruiter to Become Technical?

Once you hire a recruiter, you can train them and prepare them to hire technical employees for you. 

Here are a few things to do:

• Encourage Them to Learn About Technical Engineering

You do not have to tell them to be a pro at it, but having a general knowledge of the terms and processes will help them to make an informed decision while scrutinizing resumes. 

• Ask them to study the basics of technical engineering.
• Recommend them a few podcasts on software engineering and codes as that is an easy way to get the hang of the topic.
• Share a few websites and relevant blogs with them that explain the basics as simply as possible.
• Ask them to join online communities on platforms like Reddit, as it has a lot of discussions around tech-related topics.
• Slack is another place where non-tech recruiters can hang out and network to learn more.
• Encourage them to follow and learn from professional tech recruiters. Tell them to connect with recruiters on LinkedIn and Twitter, as that will help them create their own recruiting process better. 

• Add Technology to the Process

Technology plays a huge role in recruiting top talent. A report suggests that 73% of recruiters have increased their investment in recruitment technology in the past year.

So, non-technical recruiters can get better at shortlisting resumes with the help of AI. 67% of HR professionals feel that AI positively impacts the recruitment process. For instance, even the e-commerce giant Amazon uses a software called Hirepro for all their end-to-end recruitment needs for their virtual employees. 

 Non-technical hiring managers can also use technology to evaluate tests and data challenges of candidates. Turning to developer events is also a good idea, as they can find top talent there easily. 

• Prepare them with the Market

The primary role of any recruiter is to fill the open job positions in the company. Although, for tech roles, the market is quite fierce because the massive demand for tech experts continues to grow daily. 

Top talents also ghost recruiters regularly, as they usually have multiple offers at any given time. So, a recruiter should be prepared for various challenges while recruiting tech talent. Hiring managers who recruit tech profiles usually have a lot on their plate and are expected to be resourceful. 

While these are some of the skills and tips that you can use to prepare your non-technical hiring manager to source top talent, there are some more things that they need to understand from the candidate’s perspective. 

Know How to Hire Tech Talent?

Your hiring managers and you need to understand a few things that will help you attract and retain top tech talent. 

• Understand Tech Professionals’ Habits

Even if developers are not actively looking for a job, they keep an eye on companies and what they are doing. According to a report, tech experts prefer to pay attention to the latest blogs, news, and videos. 

So, pay attention to your company’s content strategy, as you might attract top talent in the process. Track, read, and watch topic-specific content to see what other firms post, Then share such related posts on your company page. 

Your HR managers can also network by visiting online and offline conferences organized for tech talent.

• Pay Attention to What They Want 

Most techies enjoy flexibility and freedom. Ensure that you highlight those things in your job post ads and social media posts. 

Most tech talent appreciates extra days off, flexible working hours, remote work, and work-life balance. So, ask your HRs to create a company policy that makes developers comfortable. 

• Listen to Them

Listen to what candidates are looking for from a particular role when conducting an interview. Also, ask these candidates to discuss their experience in detail and any projects they worked on.  

Ask them about what kind of environment they prefer to work in and how they stay motivated. Learn if they are more productive while working remotely or from the office. Also, understand which perks and benefits they appreciate and enjoy the most, as only then will your recruiters be able to make a reasonable offer.

Conclusion

There are particular sets of skills that are common to any recruiters. However, if you want to check whether a non-technical hiring manager can recruit technical staff for you, then work on the strategies mentioned above.

Also, it is easy to transition into a technical recruiter for a hiring manager, provided they have a passion and interest in the tech field.