Tech talent sourcing in Central and Eastern Europe has drastically changed. The key reason is that Russia and Belarus, which used to be tech hubs, are now toxic, and almost all gigs, contracts, and long-term cooperations with these countries have stopped. Ukraine, Poland, Georgia, and other CEE countries are doing their best to get Belarusian and Russian market shares. North American clients have yet another reason to consider the European IT market: Due to the parity of the U.S. dollar to the euro, outsourcing to Europe has become even more cost-efficient. There are many more reasons why sourcing tech talent in CEE is particularly beneficial in 2022. Check them out below.The place of sourcing in the recruitment process
Talent sourcing is a strategic part of the recruiting process. Sourcing specialists research the labor market, recognize talents, build interest in the company among highly-skilled specialists, and create a pool of potential applicants for the current and future open positions.Talent sourcing is a pre-recruiting stage that helps fill in current open positions and facilitates recruitment in the future by generating a constant flow of top talents who can be further converted into job applicants.The talent sourcing process
Tech talent sourcing in recruitment consists of several simple steps.
Plan your actions. Depending on what goals you’re aiming for and who you want to reach, you will choose recruiting channels. If you’re about to start a long game, think of reaching STEM students or junior specialists to hunt them when they get more hands-on experience.Write a job description. If you want to hire top talent, there must be something extraordinary in your job opportunity. Having a great HR brand might be helpful, as well as offering a salary of +15% compared to the average on the market. If you’re not yet among the world’s best employers, tell about the company’s DNA and highlight all the additional benefits your future talent will get.Choose candidate sourcing channels. Glassdoor and LinkedIn are among the most efficient global platforms to search for new talents. There are also online marketplaces, freelance platforms, and tech communities. If you prefer particular regions, opt for local talent sourcing and recruiting partners who will create a pool of candidates for you.Create a perfect candidate profile. Imagine a perfect specialist who can fill in your job position. Describe their educational background, job experience, professional skills, and personality features. Some requirements might be mandatory, like “2+ years of experience as Angular developer,” and the others will be just an advantage, like “experience in NGO.”Interact with your new findings. Get in contact with the specialists you identified as the best matches for your company. For your first contact, it’s better to write instead of calling. Make your message personalized and emphasize all the things the talent you’re reaching and your company have in common.Maintain a pool of talents. Create a pool of engaged and interested people who are willing to join your company one day. Don’t let your new contacts get lost in time. Interact with their posts on professional social networks, congratulate them on birthdays, etc.If you don’t have an in-house talent acquisition specialist who can keep in touch with the pool of talents and do pre-recruiting for you, the wise decision is to choose a reliable talent sourcing partner. In Ukraine, this can be MWDN. Apart from outsourcing and staff augmentation services, we can do recruiting and talent sourcing for you. Why CEE is a top destination for tech candidate sourcing?
According to the IT Ukraine Association report, in 2019, Eastern and Central European countries used to get a great part of their GDP from exporting IT services.
Apart from that, these countries also had and still have in 2022 a large labor market size (Ukraine – 18.1 mln, Poland – 17.0 mln) and a great number of tech talents (Poland – 430.7 thousand, Ukraine – 289.2 thousand). These numbers alone make these CEE countries top destinations for applicant sourcing, however, there is more to it.Cost-efficiency
Cost reduction is the top outsourcing objective among businesses. Outsourcing to Eastern and Central Europe is simply cheaper than maintaining an in-house tech team in the USA, Great Britain, or Western Europe.
Image source: Delloite Global Outsourcing Survey 2020No cultural gap, no language barrier
English is an established business language in most European countries. CEE countries value democracy, equality, and diversity as highly as Western countries. With this being said, opting for local candidate sourcing services instead of doing direct sourcing by yourself might be a wise decision. By choosing a reliable partner, you will get better access to the local labor market of tech experts.High levels of proficiency
CEE developers are highly skilled and have great educational backgrounds. There are some numbers to prove it. In 2016, HackerRank conducted a series of challenges among developers of various countries. Poland got an average score of 98 out of 100, Hungary – 93.9, Check Republic – 90.7, Ukraine – 88.7, Bulgaria – 87.2, and Romania – 81.9. Poland holds top places in algorithms, Java, Python, Shell, and Ruby proficiency. Hungary is among the top countries in Java, C++, tutorials, and database expertise. Ukrainian developers are among the best ones in Security, Distributed Systems, and Mathematics.Trends of talent sourcing in CEE in 2022
The full-scale war resulted in economic downfall and changes in the European IT labor market.- The U.S. dollar is at parity with the euro, which means an almost 15% discount for American clients paying in euro.
- The unemployment rate has skyrocketed in Ukraine and has increased in countries taking refugees that freed more labor force than was ever available.
- The number of junior tech specialists has never been that high.
