As layoffs continue and hiring freezes ensue, many recruiters are considering becoming the very talent for which they recruit: software developers, data scientists, or DevOps engineers. While the transferable skills of communication and collaboration are strong for recruiters, the technical skills are often the skills that they’re missing. But, recruiters know this, and they have the benefit of knowing what the desired skills are in great engineer candidates. They also see the other side of the coin and who doesn't receive offers - and thus which skills candidates might be lacking. Training to the desired skill sets of hiring managers and for technical positions in industry is so crucial to fill an opportunity, close any skills gap, and get hired right away.
The Advantages Your Background Gives You in Switching From Tech Recruiting to Developer or Engineer Positions
With a career in talent acquisition you’ve seen what it takes to be successful in technical positions and which graduates are desirable for on-the-job success. This means you can see the direct impact of a quality technical training program, and thus you could likely identify which programs produce better candidates than others, especially if you're recruiting for software engineer or related roles. On a realistic level, what that means for you is you know that if you wouldn’t recruit a graduate of a certain bootcamp, you wouldn’t do that bootcamp yourself - you may not be convinced there are great job prospects afterwards. The importance of this is reflected on which candidates have what it takes to make it to later round interviews, receive offers, and ultimately become valuable employees. To this end, your firsthand knowledge as recruiter is a huge benefit in switching.
Another benefit is the drive and motivation that recruiters have to be successful. This comes along with the position as the nature of a recruiter is to go out and find the best of the best. Recruiters want this for themselves too. They want success and they want to be able to visualize it. Having a program that fosters their ability to succeed and see that succeed is very important. Most recruiters are already very communicative and collaborative through outreach initiatives and working with many different teams to fill even a single position.
Your Transferable Skills as a Recruiter for Career Switching into Technical Jobs
Making the transition into tech from recruiting can be difficult. Our programs are a great opportunity for those with a career in recruiting to utilize their transferable skills and switch careers. Experience in developing a workforce and acquiring talent for an organization can translate very well into technical careers.
- Processing information quickly
- Strong written and verbal communication skills
- Planning
- Anticipation
- Attention to detail
- Being structured & disciplined
Preparing to Make the Switch From Tech Recruiting to Engineering
Gaining the essential technical knowledge is the first step to opening doors or switching internally in the tech industry to roles a developer, engineer, data scientist, DevOps engineer, etc. As a recruiter, you have the upper hand of knowing the skills necessary to obtain high paying jobs, as well as an insight into what the interview process looks like and the level of technical ability required to succeed. This means that if you want to make the switch and are looking for training programs that help you do so, you can and should be rigorous in finding out how programs train you to the skill level and interview level that you've seen are required to succeed in the application process for engineer/developer jobs. This insight of the process will give you a leg up when making the switch.
Realistically, since you filter hundreds of applications anyways, especially if you’re recruiting for backend software engineering or DevOps, you have access to data points to indicate which tech training programs are worthwhile and which don’t even cover the bare minimum requirements for software jobs and thus doesn't cut it. You know that filling your profile with essential skills and mastering projects of significant technical difficulty for your technical portfolio will catch the eye of your next tech recruiter or hiring manager.
Armed with these insights, your goal is to fill the gaps in your knowledge and experience. You’re looking for a program that will turn you into an ideal candidate that you or tech recruiters at your own company would be interested in recruiting!
Often, what this means for backend software engineering roles is experience with low-level programming, C/C++ or Go or Rust (or sometimes Java), experience with the software development lifecycle, the ability to write quality code efficiently, skills in logic and problem-solving, and projects in the technical portfolio that communicate the breadth and depth of technical capabilities. Career transitions can be a leap and risk to take, but if you’re interested in doing the jobs and positions that you or your team currently recruit for, following your motivation and passion is important, as is having the right training program to help you get there.
How to Flip the Switch and Get Hired
Making the actual jump from recruiting to a tech career is exciting. For one, you’re on the other side of interviews and the application process, but that can also feel overwhelming. With lots of practice and a strong technical portfolio to back you up (and all your insights as a recruiter), you’ll know how to work with every recruiter you come across and how to best present yourself for different opportunities. At Qwasar, our focus is on developing deep technical skills through hands-on learning and a lot of coding, building a minimum competency level required for software jobs while also helping you develop a strong technical portfolio.
In the final part of programs Qwasar, learners complete the Technical Interview Preparation Program in which they complete 20-40 technical interviews - one of the key skills you as a technical recruiter need to develop, and it takes practice. Learners complete interviews from a dual-sided perspective as both the interviewer and interviewee (unlike any other program), which helps them to be truly prepared when the time comes for real technical interviews.
Getting hired and the hiring process is something you will already be familiar with as you have experience filling roles and extending offers previously. This stage will come naturally to you and the negotiation process will hopefully be easier for you with your leg up in this aspect. Also, you likely already have a network and connections with the right people in industry or at desired companies where you could get a referral to help you gain your next position in software.
A lot of companies have various on-ramp-style programs or opportunities for career switchers, and anyone with previous people-related experience or tech-related experience often gets bonus points when applying. While career switching may mean starting out as an intern or apprentice then working your way through entry level/associate or junior positions, salaries for such positions in the fields of software engineering, DevOps/site reliability, or data science are still pretty decent. There are also contract and consulting opportunities to work in tech.
Why You Should Consider Qwasar Programs for Switching From Tech Recruiting
As a recruiter that wants to make the career transition into tech, there are a lot of options for training, it can get overwhelming. But, if you want to go into backend software engineering, you will need strong backend engineer skills, experience, and fundamentals that other programs simply don’t cover. Our curriculum includes significant amounts of programming in C and C++, along with Ruby, Rust, Assembly, and Go. You’ll write approximately 100K lines of code in our programs, build a strong portfolio, and develop the fundamental understanding of computer programming backend engineers are expected to have.
Not only is it the most comprehensive curriculum for technical training programs, but we’re the only program that trains to this level through competency-based practices. Before progressing on to more complex projects and concepts, our focus is to ensure learners master the software architecture and can explain their code. The software engineering program begins with a pre-season bootcamp to encompass basic software engineering principles for laying the foundation of your learning journey. As a recruiter without the essential technical skills for most technical roles, this will be a crucial stepping stone in your technical education journey. From there, you will enter specialized seasons of software engineering and advance into more in-depth C programming with intermediate data structures, object oriented programming, network programming, and real-world software projects.
We run good programs, and we already have tech recruiters from LinkedIn, Geico, and Uber all switching into software engineering, so take a look at our programs:
- Full Stack Developer Program
- Software Engineering Program
- AI/Machine Learning Engineer Program
- DevOps and Cloud Engineer Program
- Data Science Program
If you're interested in something perhaps less intimidating than our software engineering programs, take a look at our Claris App Developer Program.
