How To Become A Professional Technical Recruiter in 2022

There are many online resources offering courses for free, including Coursera, Udemy, Harvard Online Learning, Udacity, Codecademy, and edX.

Watch YouTube and TED Talks for Technical Recruiters

YouTube has endless free videos and content on everything from basic explainer videos to full, in-depth course material. It’s a great resource for learning more about the different skill sets you are sourcing.

Watch Our On-Demand Webinar: 5 Essential Outbound Recruiting Strategies for Software Roles with Gillisa Pope, Director of Sourcing Strategy and Talent Intelligence @ Wilson HCG & Steve Levy, Technical Recruiting Manager @ ZipCo

Join Online Communities and Forum groups

Reddit has a forum discussion on almost every single tech-related field, including /r/  learn programming, hardware, iOS, Android, software, and programming. See my post about how to recruit on Reddit.

Slack is another great place to find great discussions. There are many private communities where you can freely ask any type of question, and there are thousands of niche communities you can join. Check out my post  on how to get started with recruiting on Slack.

Quora is another great community for asking questions. You can also search millions of previously-answered questions on many different technical subjects. Aside from helping you find answers and expand your technical understanding, Quora can also be a great tool to source industry leaders, as discussed in my post on recruiting with Quora.

Attend Meetups and Networking Events

Search Meetup.com and you will find hundreds of tech-related community groups to attend in your city. I’ve attended any number of meetups that have been helpful — on everything from Xamarin and SAP to AX Dynamics. I recommend attending a meetup or networking every few months if you are focused on a particular technical niche. It’s a great place to learn and build relationships with others in your area.

Reach Out to Past Applicants and IT Recruiters

Any time you have a question about a tech skill, try emailing your question to some past applicants with whom you connected. I have made some close friends over the years while helping them land jobs as developers. People enjoy helping others and it’s always great to connect with them. That’s one of the things I enjoy most about recruiting: getting to make a lot of connections with people throughout the day.

Learning from seasoned IT recruiters is yet another way I have grown my knowledge. Starting right from my first job out of college, where I sat in a cube community with about a dozen recruiters, I picked up a lot of knowledge in a short amount of time. Just listening to how they conducted phone screens and how they framed certain questions was an education. No matter where you are, find colleagues who know more than you and soak up their expertise.

Never Stop Learning

Keep asking a lot of questions and be willing to fail forward. Learn every day from seasoned IT recruiters and hiring managers. Ask questions to understand their needs and to deepen your own understanding of the technology niches you are sourcing for.

The more experience you get, the more knowledge you will gain. It’s a virtuous cycle.