What is technical recruiting? Simply put, it is the process of hiring technical people for the roles like software developer, DevOps, IT Service, UI/UX Designing, etc. 

Hiring a technically sound candidate is more challenging than a non-technical one. And this can ever trickier for HR personalities hailing from a non-technical background.

The hiring team needs to have a functional knowledge of every concept relevant to the job, and this isn’t something simple.

But, how much knowledge is enough knowledge? It’d take months to make all the technical jargon understandable. So it’s better if you have a technical cheat sheet ready before hiring for such complex roles.

This article will tell you more about a technical cheat sheet and the process of assessing technical skills.

What Is a Technical Cheat Sheet?

Hiring for a technical role can be demanding if you don’t have the know-how. But how do hire the best technical talent?

First, you’ve to know what the job demands. Then you’ve to identify the candidates who have the required skillset and expertise. The next step of the interview must ensure that the candidates you’ve chosen are indeed the right fit for the position.

This might seem to be an extensive process. But you have to move fast to fill up the positions quickly while keeping the top candidates interested.

This is where a technical recruiting cheat sheet can create a difference.

A technical recruiter cheat sheet is a collection of the terms, skillsets, language requirements, and definitions that a recruiter should keep in mind while hiring for complex technical roles.

The technical terms and concepts can be confusing for hiring managers from non-technical backgrounds. A technical cheat sheet can help you locate valuable technical recruiting information quickly and easily resulting in greater success rates for your technical recruitment process.

There are a lot more benefits of using a technical recruiting cheat sheet – 

• Easy access to a ton of intricate technical terms that you are likely to encounter during hiring.
• A bigger perspective of the fast-paced world of tech you are hiring for.
• Make the candidates trust that you understand technical complications.
• Improved clarity and precision while hiring for a role you’re not acquainted with.
• Better screening and assessment abilities to evaluate and choose the right candidates.

Do You Need a Technical Cheat Sheet?

If you’re a tech recruiter with extensive and in-depth knowledge of the complicated terminology, tools, and languages used by developers, a cheat sheet won’t be necessary for you.

But for non-technical recruiters, these terms are a maze of complex intents to make you feel like the developers are using some different language.

When you’re hiring technical lovers, you should be able to estimate how knowledgeable and adept a candidate is, and communicate with them freely. This is where a technical cheat sheet comes in.

How to Assess Technical Skills: The Complete Process

You can assess the technical skills of a candidate using a blend of several tools.

The most common method is to add a technical skill test to your hiring process. These tests are one of the most effective ways to narrow down the applicant pool based on their technical expertise.

Below given is the process that you can use to successfully assess the candidates based on their knowledge of the technical jargon – 

Identify and Categorize the Skills Required

This is the core of your skill valuation guide.

In the first step, you have to identify the skills that are demanded by the job. The next task would be to identify the skills required to achieve your organizational goals. Next, categorize them into buckets.

Categorizing individual skills into buckets is useful to identify on a broad scale where employees are versus overall organizational goals as well as aligning with learning opportunities.

List out and categorize all the skills that are present in your organization today, the skills that you’ll need in the future, and the skills asked by the job role.

Shortlist Based on the Resume and the Experience

The next step will involve evaluation based on the resume and experience of the candidates.

The resume will give you a basic overall idea about the skills and abilities of the candidates while the experience will let you know about their approach to the problems and tasks.

Try not to rely much on the resume and experience since a candidate with a strong resume and expansive experience might fail in the long run.

Use Online Assessment Tests

Online assessment tests are one of the most effective ways to assess the technical expertise of candidates without errors.

While these tests can save time and money, the results will be accurate since these will be generated using technology without human involvement. An online assessment can help you evaluate the core competencies of a candidate as well as the soft skills required to excel in the long run. 

Testlify has over 180 similar aptitude tests that can help you assess different skills of the candidates including technical expertise. To get a free trial of the tests, register now.

Add Self-Assessment and Real-Life Situations

Providing the candidates with questionnaires that include both subjective and objective questions can be an effective way of estimating the self-perception of the candidates.

If you want a real-time assessment of the skills of the candidate, try putting real-life situations in front of them. 

If they can clear a challenging task within the stipulated time, they can join your team.

Conclusion

While a technical cheat sheet can help you in technical excellence, assessing the technical abilities of the candidates can be a task made simple. Candidates who have sound technical knowledge can be the assets that you need to surefire your organization’s growth. Hopefully, this guide can be helpful for you in hiring your prospects efficiently and reducing the time and effort required to hire.