The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has been making strides in the tech and software-as-a-service (SaaS) field. From financial technology (fintech) products to educational technology (ed-tech) to recruitment technology (HR tech) to all the types of tech you can think of, you’ll find at least two MENA-based businesses offering that type of technology.
As more tech businesses emerge, there’s higher demand for skilled tech talents to fulfill the needs of these tech companies.
But this growth has made it more challenging for HR professionals and tech recruiters who are constantly trying to attract top tech talents.
Here are our top tips for finding and hiring the right tech talents with ease with comments from experts in the field.
Why recruiters find it hard to hire the right tech talents?
To find the right tech talents, it’s important you understand that tech recruitment differs from general recruitment.
Many HR professionals and recruiters aren’t familiar with the diverse world of tech. And it’s not really their fault. Technical recruitment comes with its own set of requirements and challenges.
As the world transforms and grows through technology, AI, machine learning, and many other terms and technologies, tech roles evolve. Which makes it even harder for recruiters to keep up and find the right tech talents for companies they’re hiring for.
So, whether you’re hiring a junior or senior developer, a frontend, backend, or full stack developer, you need to understand everything about the role and what each person can do.
How to hire the right tech talent
The first step in finding tech talents is understanding the needs of your team and organization. The next step is creating a job description that doesn’t involve looking for the next dragon or ninja.
Here are a few tips on hiring the right tech talents from our expert network.
Offer flexibility & a health work environment
Like all talents worldwide, techies want a healthy work environment that offers benefits and flexibility. Most developers today, work in a remote capacity, whether for companies in their home country or anywhere in the world.
With a strong virtual onboarding process, you can easily hire and work with a techie, developer, or even tech team lead from anywhere.
Benefits and flexibility are among the top ways to attract and retain skilled tech talents. Unfortunately, many recruiters fail to understand what drives techies and what would entice them to join a company or team.
It’s no surprise that techies will bail when they discover their new job is sucking the life out of them, with no opportunity for growth whether internally or professionally.
Amena Thabet, People Operations Manager at Raisa Energy, stresses the importance of flexibility for techies. She describes it as a main feature that allows techies to be more creative at what they do.
For tech talents specifically, “flexibility comes with huge responsibility,” Thabet notes, explaining that recruiters have to hire those who show more accountability because the world is leaning towards those with great personality traits compared to those with only technical skills.
Tech recruiters also have to deal with tech talents as human beings rather than just numbers,” Thabet adds. That’s because talents deserve to have a fair chance at developing their technical and personal skills as they grow where they work. They must also find balance between their personal life and work to be able to continue and even be retained in that same company.
Provide compensation to match the workload
The emergence of many tech startups in the MENA region has impacted the tech recruitment industry both positively and negatively.
Positively, the rise of many rising tech startups has created job opportunities and increased demand for skilled tech talents.
Conversely, and according to many tech recruiters, these same startups have inflated the salaries of many tech talents. As a result, this has created a salary gap between what techies expect and what their skills allow them to earn.
Ibrahim Mamdouh, senior recruitment coordinator at BDO Esnad, confirms this. Speaking to TechieMatter, he cites “salaries” as one of the main challenges of the recruitment process.
Unlike many tech recruiters, Mamdouh believes the MENA market has many talented tech calibers. However, the core challenge in hunting or hiring them is the skyrocketing salaries.
Adapt to new approaches and use HR software
Tech Recruiters and HR professionals need to adapt new approaches and technologies to reach the right talent. They need to use the right tools, system, and HR software that helps them not only source but assess tech talents.
Finding the right tech talent isn’t just about sharing your job vacancies in as many places as possible and getting 100 or 1000 resumes. That’s just a lot of work and headache!
As mentioned, tech talent recruitment is different from hiring marketers or salespeople or HR professionals. There’s a ‘tech’ side to it.
For example, clients who use TechieMatter don’t get 1,000+ resumes to sift through. They get only a handful of already-filtered top techies that match their job description and needs.
The client can then decide if they want TechieMatter to manage the next stages of the tech hiring process or not. These include tech assessment, an interview with a tech expert, and later onboarding.
Learn more about TechieMatter’s products covering all stages of the tech recruitment process.
TechieMatter is the fastest, most reliable, and hassle-free specialized technical recruitment platform in MENA.
We help employers find the tech talents that match their business needs through our network of highly-qualified tech verifiers.
Our clients turn to us for challenging tech recruitment needs and it’s our pleasure to take on one challenge after the other.
Here's what one client has had to say about their experience working with TechieMatter.
Need help finding the right tech talents for your business? Get in touch with TechieMatter by submitting a hiring request today!
