We asked tech recruiters what they look for in candidates. Here’s what they said.

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Simply put, tech recruiters are recruiters specializing in acquiring technical talent in a variety of industries. With their technical knowledge and understanding of the demands involved, tech recruiters are in a better position to connect the right candidates to open positions in a company’s tech team.

But what are they really looking for? In the first of this four-part series, we spoke to seven tech recruiters in Singapore to find out.

Technical skills

Having the necessary technical skills, as expected, ranked top of the list of things technical recruiters were looking for.

Produce neat and clean code

“Candidates should be skilful at coding in a variety of languages,” said Alberto Resco, engineering manager and tech recruiter at ecommerce startup Shopback. “They should be able to code neatly and cleanly.”

Close adherence to job requirements

For mobile advertising platform Pocketmath, it is important how closely candidates’ skills match the startup’s needs. “With technical roles, we are strict on how closely a candidate’s tech stack matches our requirements set in the job description,” said Frederic Bonifassy, talent manager at Pocketmath.

“As the adtech industry is still maturing, experience and skill can make a huge difference. We also require candidates to undergo a technical test before they can be considered for interviews.”

The chief product and technology officer at PropertyGuru Group, Malcolm Fitzgerald, broke down what he looks out for in both product and user experience design, as well as the engineering team.

“For product and UX, I look for people who are data driven and technically savvy,” he said. “They need to know how to pick and measure the right metrics and create solid roadmaps that move the needle. For our technology (engineering) side, they must have solid engineering skills in any language and apply out of the box thinking to solve real problems.”

Key skills he lists for PropertyGuru’s product and UX team include data collection, extraction and analysis, some familiarity with code, experimentation (A/B testing), and interactive prototyping. Key skills for the engineering team include HTML, Javascript, SQL, a deep understanding of one’s speciality language or framework, debugging and security skills, microservice architecture, and system design.

Solid foundation in computer science

Balancing hard skills with soft skills