In any business, there are the people who help turn the cogs day in, day out. These employees are the technical experts who use their knowledge and skills to perform specific tasks. From IT to law to engineering, these technicians and operators are vital for businesses to run smoothly.

The most important resource or asset of any business is its people. Losing key talent to competitors, or failing to hire for the right kind of skills can mean your business loses a competitive advantage in the market.

Innovations in products and services will also stem from this technical talent. These are the employees who will understand the day to day challenges of your industry and business, and these are the employees who can drive top level strategy through their experiences.

In many industries, certain skills and knowledge are hard to come by, so having a proactive recruitment process in place will help ensure you acquire the top talent out there. Losing out on this talent to competitors can be a huge setback and allow your competition to leverage skills and knowledge that you desperately need.

Technical skills

Hiring technical talent needs to have an emphasis on the skills and knowledge of the candidate. This will vary from industry to industry, but some roles will require specific qualifications and experience. This aspect of hiring is the easiest and simply requires candidates to have a certain qualification that shows they are suitable for the level of knowledge required to perform the job. Many industries require professional training to progress up the career ladder.

After that, it becomes a little more challenging. It then becomes about understanding the needs of a business and what type of candidate will help them achieve this. This is where industry benchmarking and market mapping become useful processes to understand where the business is and what skills they are lacking.

Successful hiring of technical positions requires an understanding of how a candidate can influence a business in their day to day jobs. Evaluating how they are likely to fit in with company culture and the existing departments and technical workforce will impact their effectiveness.

Hiring technical talent is a balancing act between gaining as much knowledge and skills for the business, as well as ensuring the right kind of people join the team. This can depend on the candidate’s personal career goals as well as what kind of work motivates them.

How to find technical talent

As technology adavances and globalisation continues to provide access to a global workforce, technical talent becomes an exciting prospect. Looking to new markets and new locations around the world can uncover top talent that competitors haven’t gained access to yet. There is a real advantage to understanding the global spread of talent and international headhunting.

To find the best technical talent who will have a big impact in your business, you need to work backwards. Starting with market mapping and benchmarking, you want to identify where you sit in the marketplace and what positions, departments, products/services, you are falling short on. This will help identify who you need to hire. Any technical hire should relate very closely to what your business is trying to achieve.

Once a business knows the type of candidate they need, they can work to find and attract them. Executive search firms are the best place to start as they specifically spend time building relationships with the top talent in an industry and can give you quick access to this talent pool.

Hiring technical talent goes beyond just identifying and finding a suitable candidate. It’s about how to integrate them effectively into a business. Having the right leadership, processes and support will ensure any technical hire turns into a huge competitive advantage.

It doesn’t matter what kind of business you run, you require people with specific skills and talents. Finding and keeping these people will be a determining factor in the overall success of the business. These technicians will then also be at the forefront of informing and recommending what future talent and skills the business needs. This is particularly relevant in highly skilled professions. Someone who is doing the day to day technical tasks, is much more likely to spot inefficiencies or holes in the operations than a top-level executive. Therefore, many of the technical hires become fundamental to strategy and top-level decision making.

The quick way to find technical talent

For a chat about how to get started with technical recruitment, talk to our dedicated search team who are ready and waiting to help you grow your team. We are well connected with an unrivalled understanding of how to find the top talent that your business needs.