Top 3 recruitment challenges for IT companies

TL;DR  

As in many other industries, hiring in IT is rarely about filling a single role. More often, it’s about balancing speed with quality and long-term sustainability in an environment where skills evolve faster than job titles and where the same candidates are approached by several employers at once. 

For HR and recruitment teams, this creates a set of recurring challenges that go far beyond simply finding candidates. Based on conversations with IT leaders and recruiters, as well as drawing on insights from our 2026 HR Report, based on responses from over 5,000 candidates, three issues stand out. 

Overview 

• Why talent scarcity in specialized IT roles persists 
  
• Why competition and salary pressure don’t tell the full story 
  
• Why long hiring cycles increase candidate drop-off 
• What this means for IT recruitment moving forward 

1. Talent scarcity in highly specialized technical roles

In IT, not all shortages are equal. While junior roles may attract volume, experienced profiles in areas such as software architecture, cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, or data engineering remain consistently hard to fill. 

The challenge is therefore not just the number of candidates, but also the specific combination of skills organizations need. Many roles require: 

• deep technical expertise 
• experience with particular systems or frameworks 
• and the ability to collaborate across business and product teams 
  

This narrows the talent pool significantly. At the same time, job requirements are often shaped by fast-moving technologies, making it difficult to rely on historical role profiles or standard job descriptions. 

For recruiters, this means spending substantial time aligning with hiring managers, refining requirements, and actively sourcing. And all that with often no guarantee that the few suitable candidates will be available or interested when approached. 

2. Intense competition and growing salary pressure 

IT professionals are rarely passive candidates. Many are continuously contacted by recruiters and are well aware of their market value. As a result, organizations often find themselves competing long before a formal offer is even discussed. 

This pressure shows up in several ways: 

• candidates progressing through multiple hiring processes in parallel 
  
• late-stage negotiations around compensation and benefits 
• increased expectations around flexibility, remote work, and personal development 

While salary plays an important role in these negotiations, it is rarely the only deciding factor. In our 2026 HR Report, where over 5,000 candidates told us about their expectations and experiences with recruitment, we asked about salary too. When asked what matters most when applying for a job, candidates told us:

• company values and culture (24%), 
• career development potential (24%),
• and team and leadership (19%) rank the highest.

Salary and benefits came as a fourth factor, with only 14%. Additionally, we asked what catches candidates' attention first when they look at a job ad. The result? Salary and benefits catch the attention of just 4% at first, the last of all offered factors.  

Still, compensation discussions often dominate the process, leaving less room to communicate long-term growth, learning opportunities, or the purpose behind the role. Over time, this dynamic can make recruitment feel transactional, and it raises a difficult question for HR teams: how to remain attractive without relying solely on pay increases that may not be sustainable. 

3. Long hiring cycles driven by skill assessment

Assessing technical competence is essential in IT. Simultaneously, it is also one of the main reasons hiring processes become lengthy and complex. 

Many organizations rely on: 

• technical tests or coding assignments 
  
• case challenges 
  
• multiple interview rounds involving different stakeholders 
  

Each step adds value, but together they often extend time-to-hire significantly. From the candidate’s perspective, this can feel demanding and unclear, especially when feedback is delayed or expectations are not transparent. 

This is not an assumption we are making, but facts we know from the opinions of over 5,000 candidates who shared them with us. We asked them what they consider the most frustrating part of the job application process. And the top three answers? Lack of feedback or updates, long or complex requirements for documents (CV, cover letter etc.) and unclear job descriptions, in that order. 

This proves that for recruiters, long hiring cycles increase the risk of losing strong candidates to organizations with faster, more streamlined processes. They also create internal pressure, as teams wait longer for critical roles to be filled while workloads continue to grow. Finding the right balance between thorough assessment and a respectful candidate experience therefore clearly remains one of the hardest challenges in IT recruitment. 

What's next?

IT recruitment will continue to be complex, but it doesn’t have to remain reactive. By widening talent pools, improving candidate experience, and streamlining hiring processes, IT organizations can build stronger teams without relying on constant salary pressure or lengthy recruitment cycles.

At Talentech, we work with IT companies across the Nordics and Netherlands to:

• Build long-term talent pipelines through skills-based hiring and talent pools

• Reduce time-to-hire with automation and structured recruitment workflows

• Improve candidate experience with clear communication and predictable processes

Explore how our recruitment solutions support IT firms HERE.