If you’re a hiring manager or HR leader, you’ve probably felt this already: finding and hiring great technical talent has never been more difficult.
Maybe you’ve posted the role, waited weeks with no traction, or brought someone on only to realize they weren’t the right fit. It’s frustrating, time-consuming, and it puts real pressure on your team.
At DISHER Talent Solutions, we’ve partnered with dozens of companies to help them with this exact challenge. We gathered data over the years to identify the most common problems companies face during technical recruiting, why they happen, and actionable strategies to tackle each one head-on.
Problem #1: Shortage of Qualified Candidates
One of the biggest challenges companies face is simply getting enough qualified applicants. It’s not that people aren’t applying—it’s that applicants don’t have the right mix of experience, technical knowledge, or problem-solving skills. For niche roles like embedded systems engineers or automation experts, the talent pool is even smaller.
At the same time, the rapid pace of technological change means that even experienced professionals need to constantly upskill. Just think about how far we’ve come with AI in the past five years.
Everyone is hiring from the same pool, and the best candidates are often juggling multiple offers. Some aren’t actively looking at all.
What This Looks Like in Real Life:
- You post a job and get a dozen applicants. Only one or two meet the baseline qualifications.
- You start reaching out on LinkedIn, but nobody responds.
- You rely on recruiters who flood your inbox with resumes, but none feel like a fit.
What You Can Do
- Narrow your focus – Determine what actually matters for the role. If you’re asking for 15 different skills or tools, you may be turning away great people who could succeed with just a few of those.
- Go beyond job boards – Consider referrals, LinkedIn outreach, or niche communities where technical talent gathers. We’ve also had success tapping into alumni groups, university partnerships, and professional associations.
- Hire for potential – Don’t overlook candidates who have potential to grow into the role with some coaching or support.
Problem #2: Lengthy & Inefficient Hiring Processes
Technical roles often take longer to fill than other positions. According to some estimates, it can take over two months to fill an engineering role, and that only increases with seniority and experience level.
However, an inefficient hiring process can make this time-to-fill metric even worse. Many companies lose out on top talent simply because they can’t move fast enough. Technical candidates are often evaluating multiple offers, and a slow process can mean losing your first-choice hire to a faster-moving competitor.
You Might Be Experiencing This If:
- You require a lengthy application form or many rounds of interviews.
- You aren’t providing feedback to candidates within 48 hours or less.
- Projects are being pushed back due to lack of manpower, or your team is constantly working overtime to fill gaps.
- You’ve lost promising candidates because they accepted another offer before you could provide one.
What You Can Do
- Map out your hiring process – All the way from job posting to accepted offer, identify where things tend to stall. Are approvals delayed? Are interviews hard to schedule? Once you find the bottlenecks, you can start tightening things up.
- Communicate, communicate, communicate – Ensure frequent touchpoints to keep candidates informed so they don’t lose interest or assume you’ve moved on. They should never not hear from you for a week.
- Use artificial intelligence (AI) – Integrating AI can streamline operations and enrich a candidate’s journey, if there is still human oversight.
Problem #3: Internal Teams Aren’t Set Up for Success
Recruiting and retaining technical talent isn’t just about external factors. Your internal teams need to be aligned as well. In many organizations, HR is responsible for hiring but doesn’t fully understand the technical requirements. Meanwhile, engineering teams struggle to explain what they need.
This disconnect leads to confusion, delays, and inconsistent candidate experiences. If your internal process isn’t dialed in, it’s hard to attract (and keep) the right people.
Look Out for These Red Flags:
- Job roles change halfway through the hiring process.
- Engineers feel left out of decision-making.
- HR can’t answer candidate questions about day-to-day responsibilities.
What You Can Do
Before launching a search, get everyone in a room and define what success looks like in the role. What are the must-haves versus the nice-to-haves? What does the team need most in the next 90 days? Agree on the interview steps, who’s involved, and what each person is evaluating. When hiring becomes a shared responsibility between HR and technical leaders, the process moves faster, and the outcomes improve.
Candidates notice the difference, too.
Problem #4: Salary Expectations and Budget Constraints
Technical professionals know their worth, and salary expectations continue to rise. You’ve probably already found yourself in bidding wars that have quickly blown past budget limits. This is especially challenging if you’re hiring for a startup or mid-sized business that can’t match the comp packages offered by tech giants.
It’s not just about salary, either. Candidates are looking for comprehensive benefits, flexible work arrangements, and growth opportunities. If your offer falls short, you risk losing out to competitors who can provide something more attractive.
You Might Be Experiencing This If:
- Candidates drop out of the process after learning about the compensation range.
- You make offers that are consistently declined or countered with numbers far above your budget.
- Internal conversations about pay get stuck in approval loops because the market has shifted faster than your budget planning.
What You Can Do (Besides Going Over the Budget)
- Be honest – Being transparent with candidates early in the process builds trust and saves time. If it’s not going to work, don’t waste 3+ interviews on it.
- Review your compensation strategy – This should be done at least annually to adjust based on current data for your industry and region.
- Highlight the full picture – You can’t out pay a global tech company, but you can negotiate other options that cost less but matter more to candidates looking for balance: team culture, flexible hours, hybrid schedules, career growth, etc.
Problem #5: Overlooking Culture Fit
Technical skills are easy to assess on paper. Culture fit? Not so much. When companies focus too narrowly on hard skills, they often miss whether someone will be a great addition to the team, communicate well, or embrace how work gets done internally.
A poor culture fit might look like someone who resists collaboration, shuts down in the face of feedback, or struggles to adapt to your workflow. Even if their code is solid, the disruption can hurt morale and productivity.
Signs Culture Fit Is Being Missed:
- New hires leave within the first year.
- Team dynamics shift in a negative direction after someone joins.
- Engineers do good work but seem disengaged or isolated.
Hiring Doesn’t Have to Be This Hard
Recruiting technical talent is hard, but it’s not impossible. When you nail down what’s getting in the way, you can start to make real progress. Small shifts in how you write job descriptions, structure your process, and engage your team can make a big difference.
At DISHER Talent Solutions, we’ve helped organizations of all sizes turn their hiring from a pain point into a strength. If you’re ready to stop spinning your wheels and start hiring with confidence, we’re happy to help.
