18 strategies for employers hiring candidates who are early in their technology careers

There are important short- and long-term benefits for employers to hire students, recent graduates, and others early in their careers for technology roles. We reached out to 18 hiring experts to get their thoughts:

• Host Tech Challenges to Uncover Hidden Talent
• Implement Aptitude Testing for Future Potential
• Run Simulation-Based Hiring Sprints
• Create Skills-First Hiring Pipelines
• Engage Candidates with Real-World Projects
• Partner with Tech Education Providers
• Develop Long-Term Talent Acquisition Strategies
• Invest in University and Bootcamp Partnerships
• Scale Culture Alongside Recruitment Systems
• Launch Technical Translator Program for Non-Coders
• Design Layered Hiring Pathways for Engagement
• Build Graduate-Focused Employee Referral Program
• Sell the Mission to Attract Passionate Talent
• Treat Recruitment Like a Product Funnel
• Prioritize Portfolios Over Algorithmic Puzzles
• Establish Strong Presence on Target Campuses
• Optimize Recruiting Process with Data Analytics
• Forge Long-Term Relationships with Educational Institutions

Host Tech Challenges to Uncover Hidden Talent

You’re on a talent treasure hunt, and instead of digging random holes hoping to strike gold, you’ve got a legitimate treasure map — one that winds through universities, bootcamps, and all those places where the next tech wizards are hiding out.

No more posting dry job ads and crossing your fingers. Instead, you’re showing up early, throwing hackathons like they’re parties, and inviting every future coder and data nerd to show you what they’ve really got.

You want to see who can actually think on their feet, break stuff, and build it back better. So you roll out a “Future Finance” adventure — think of it as Survivor, but for fintech hopefuls.

Two weeks of real-world challenges, then a six-month tour through your office jungle, all with seasoned guides showing them the ropes. By the end, you’re not just hiring a warm body — you’re adopting a new family member who already knows the secret handshake.

You’re not just waving at students from the sidelines. You’re in the thick of it: hosting workshops, stealing the spotlight in guest lectures, maybe even dropping memes in the group chat.

It’s like having a digital butler who sorts through the party guests and brings you only the best conversationalists. No more drowning in applications or losing track of that one genius who built a robot out of recycled pizza boxes.

If you’re really serious about leveling up, grab a book or two — “High Velocity Hiring,” “Topgrading.” The secret sauce is looking past the shiny credentials and spotting raw potential. Throw in some games, get creative with interviews, and you’ll find people who surprise you.

Mohit Ramani, CEO & CTO, Empyreal Infotech Pvt. Ltd.

Implement Aptitude Testing for Future Potential

By far, my most important recommendation for early careers tech hiring is to incorporate aptitude testing in the recruitment process.

Typically, organizations rely solely on software skills testing at this level. Although this may seem intuitive, it’s actually highly myopic, as it only tells you about what candidates know now.

Early careers hires are effectively paid to learn; they aren’t expected to hit the ground running. This is why aptitude tests are substantially more useful than skills tests, as they reveal who has the potential to improve (and who doesn’t).

Yes, skills tests are better predictors of day-one performance, week-one performance, maybe even month-one performance. But after 6 to 12 months, it’s the smartest candidates who will be the top performers, and aptitude tests are the perfect tool for this.

Moreover, aptitude tests are substantially more robust against AI-based cheating than software tests. I have seen completely code-illiterate people ace software tests using ChatGPT, so it just isn’t viable anymore.

Therefore, I strongly recommend using aptitude tests for early careers tech roles, more so than any other possible intervention.

Ben Schwencke, Chief Psychologist, Test Partnership

Run Simulation-Based Hiring Sprints

If you want to hire early career candidates for tech roles, one strategy I strongly recommend is simulation-based hiring sprints. Traditional interviews may no longer be as effective. You can miss the full picture, especially with emerging talent. That’s why we’ve moved beyond the CV and want to see skills in practice. We use real project scenarios.

These simulations place candidates in short, collaborative challenges based on the kinds of problems we solve for clients in iGaming, Healthcare, and Airlines. It’s not just about technical skills; it’s about the ability to adapt and communicate. Our team observes how people learn on the fly. We’ve found this method not only reveals high-potential talent that might be overlooked on paper but also provides candidates with meaningful insight into our company’s work environment.

My advice is simple: Let people show you how they think, not just what they know. Simulations will help you assess both trust and fit. That’s what sustainable hiring is really about.

Ksenia Kobryn, CEO, Symphony Solutions

Create Skills-First Hiring Pipelines

If you’re looking to hire tech talent at scale, especially early-career candidates, one strategy that works exceptionally well is to build structured, skills-first hiring pipelines that don’t rely on resumes alone. Traditional filters — like GPA, college pedigree, or internship history — often miss out on the kind of raw, coachable talent that can thrive in technical roles with the right support.

One approach we used was partnering with bootcamps and non-traditional training programs, then creating our own technical assessment that focused on problem-solving and real-world coding challenges. The goal wasn’t to screen people out — it was to give them a chance to show what they could do, not just what they’d done before. We also ran “build weeks” where candidates could work on lightweight projects in small teams, almost like a working interview, with support from engineers on our team.

What made this scalable was treating recruitment like onboarding. From the first interaction, we framed it as: “Here’s how we’ll help you grow, and here’s how we assess fit — not just skill.” That built trust and also helped reduce drop-off during the hiring process. Plus, it gave us a more diverse pipeline of candidates who might have been overlooked by traditional filters but turned out to be some of our strongest hires.

The bottom line: if you want to hire hundreds of early-career technologists, stop hunting unicorns and start building systems that surface potential. You’ll fill roles faster — and likely build a stronger, more loyal team in the long run.

Patric Edwards, Founder & Principal Software Architect, Cirrus Bridge

Engage Candidates with Real-World Projects

One strategy that works exceptionally well — especially at scale — is project-based recruiting. Instead of filtering candidates by resume or GPA, provide them with a small, real-world challenge that reflects the kind of work they would actually do on the job. Make it collaborative, time-boxed, and focused on how they think, not just what they know.

This approach levels the playing field for early-career candidates, surfaces hidden talent, and gives you a much better signal than interviews alone. We’ve helped companies hire dozens of candidates this way — and not only do you find stronger fits, but the candidates are more engaged from day one because they’ve already completed work that matters.

Daniel Gorlovetsky, CEO, TLVTech

Partner with Tech Education Providers

In the current tech hiring environment, filling roles with large groups of early-career candidates can be incredibly valuable. One way to do this is to engage with coding workshops and tech-focused course providers.

I have found that by engaging closely with respected tech education providers, you can access a pool of candidates who are committed, practically trained, and ready to make contributions to your team. Often compared to traditional academic programs, coding workshop students focus on real-world skills, industry tools, and agile practices. These may be well-suited to young developers who will be placed in fast-paced teams.

By providing workshops, guest lectures, or engaging in co-developed short training tracks, you can create early engagement and brand awareness with students. This improves your hiring velocity and gives you the ability to contextualize the learning pipeline with the specific skills your teams require.

Volodymyr Kaminovskyy, CEO, Lionwood Software

Develop Long-Term Talent Acquisition Strategies

Create a pipeline rather than relying on individual job posts. When hiring at scale, you simply cannot do it with one-off posts. Connect with coding bootcamps, universities, and online learning platforms in a direct and meaningful way, not just superficially. Arrange regular contests, mock interview days, or even devise your own problem sets that resemble your actual screening scripts. This approach allows for self-selection of candidates, and ensures that candidates are prepared even before they apply.

We have had hiring partners who have incorporated their actual interview formats into our platform. The application-to-hire conversion rate is over 30 percent, and the ramp-up time has decreased since candidates are aware of what to expect. You can keep friction to a minimum and maintain the quality of candidates at an all-time high without increasing the size of your recruitment team.

Do not disregard the importance of feedback loops. Providing candidates with a meaningful learning path, regardless of whether they pass or not, and helping them build resumes and experience will raise your employer brand equity. This ensures that the best talent will come to you when they are truly ready.

Mircea Dima, CTO / Software Engineer, AlgoCademy

Invest in University and Bootcamp Partnerships

Partnering with universities and coding bootcamps to develop long-term talent pipelines is among the strongest recruiting strategies for bringing large numbers of early-career candidates into technical roles. Offering internship and apprenticeship programs allows employers to test skills in a real-world setting and give applicants practical experience. Structuring hackathons, case challenges, and technology competitions in-house and virtually can draw highly motivated candidates and promote the experiences at the firm. Combining these initiatives with formalized onboarding and mentoring guarantees faster ramp-up and retention of new hires.

George Fironov, Co-Founder & CEO, Talmatic

Scale Culture Alongside Recruitment Systems

When hiring early-career candidates at scale, it’s easy to lean on automation to move fast. However, it’s crucial not to forget to scale your culture alongside your systems. At Techcare, we’ve invested heavily in using digital tools not just for recruitment logistics, but to reflect who we are as a company.

From virtual open days to asynchronous Q&As with our team, we build touchpoints that humanize our brand. Candidates get a feel for what we believe in: collaboration, innovation, and customer obsession. They gain this insight before they ever sign a contract. This kind of cultural alignment is what turns a good hire into a great one.

At the end of the day, hiring dozens or hundreds of young tech talents isn’t just about filling roles. It’s about building the next generation of your business. Technology helps with scale, but people power your future.

Oliver Aleksejuk, Managing Director, Techcare

Launch Technical Translator Program for Non-Coders

Stop hunting for unicorns and start breeding dragons.

Many companies spend a lot of time looking for a “perfect” candidate who has a specific set of skills. On the other hand, smart employers have recognized individuals with the right mindset and given them the necessary skills.

My method will be: Start a “Technical Translator Program.” Select candidates who have a background somewhat related to the subject matter. For example, financial analysts who have created Excel macros, graphic designers who have tried JavaScript, and project managers who have automated their workflows. In fact, these people have a logical way of thinking and are good at problem-solving; they just need to learn the coding language.

Run intensive 6-week internal bootcamps where you teach them your exact tools and processes. Pay them during training. The investment is minimal compared to recruiting fees and months of searching.

What you get is incredibly powerful: employees who understand both the technical and business sides, who are fiercely loyal because you invested in them, and who can bridge the gap between your tech team and other departments.

The best developers aren’t born knowing React and Python — they’re born curious and determined. Everything else can be taught in weeks, not years.

This approach fills dozens of roles quickly while building a team that actually understands your business, not just the code.

Cache Merrill, Founder, Zibtek

Design Layered Hiring Pathways for Engagement

I would recommend that employers follow “layered hiring pathways,” in other words, tiered hiring procedures that convey volume along with depth, at least in the case of early career tech roles. Instead of resume screens or automated coding tests, we designed a multiphase process that began with short skills-first video prompts (like explaining a technical concept in plain English), followed by low-lift project sprints and concluding with paired interviews alongside mentors, not just hiring managers. This absolutely enabled us to measure more than just code. We measured clarity, coachability, and real thirst for knowledge — all of which we discovered are stronger predictors of success in changing tech contexts.

When we embedded this process with a fintech partner who planned to scale 120 roles in six months, we saw a 65% increase in retention over their previous workforce. The difference? Candidates weren’t just “processed,” they were screened and engaged. My advice is to stop looking for plug-and-play hires. Instead, create a hiring system that educates as much as it filters. Talented young professionals want an opportunity, not some guessing game to go along with it. If your process feels like a mature and respectful one from that first touchpoint onwards, you’re more likely to attract people who stick around and scale with you.

Jonathan Garini, Founder & CEO | Enterprise AI Strategist, FifthElement

Build Graduate-Focused Employee Referral Program

A recruiting strategy I recommend — especially when hiring at scale for early-career tech roles — is to build a referral program specifically targeting recent graduates and junior staff. A while back, we needed to bring on a wave of junior technicians quickly. Instead of only going through traditional channels, we offered a small bonus to current employees if they referred someone who completed onboarding. The twist? We encouraged them to refer people they had worked with in school, internships, or certification programs.

What surprised me was how many quality candidates came through those personal networks. They already had a basic understanding of the job expectations because their friend had walked them through what it was like. That made onboarding smoother and reduced early turnover. For large-scale junior hiring, tapping into those peer-to-peer connections can yield candidates who aren’t just qualified — they’re ready to plug in and grow with the team.

Brian Fontanella, Owner, Keystone Technology Consultants

Sell the Mission to Attract Passionate Talent

My strategy is this: sell the mission instead of selling the job. In an era where AI can handle routine coding, the most brilliant young minds in science and engineering aren’t looking for just a list of technologies or a competitive salary. They are looking for a purpose to rally around.

We built a global team by focusing on a vision that matters. We tell our candidates we’re building an “agent-to-agent economy” to enable what I call meaningful, creative work that liberates people from economic subsistence.

This approach attracts candidates who possess deep intellectual curiosity and a genuine passion for solving monumental problems. Early-career talent wants to build the future. Give them a future worth building, and the best will find you.

Alexander De Ridder, Co-Founder & CTO, SmythOS.com

Treat Recruitment Like a Product Funnel

If you’re hiring early-career talent at scale, one of the most effective strategies is to treat recruitment like a product funnel, starting with employer branding and ending with onboarding readiness.

We’ve seen that high-volume hiring isn’t just a numbers game; it’s a systems game.

When targeting early-career candidates, especially for tech roles, your brand and process need to resonate with digital natives who value clarity, speed, and purpose. One proven strategy is to build talent communities ahead of time through internships, hackathons, university partnerships, or open-source contributions.

Then, operationalize the funnel:

• Use structured assessments to fairly screen for potential rather than polish.
• Automate communications to keep candidates engaged and informed.
• Train hiring managers to evaluate for coachability and learning velocity, not just credentials.

Finally, invest in onboarding before day one. For early-career hires, the real differentiator isn’t just the offer; it’s how quickly they can contribute and feel connected from the start.

Yuying Deng, CEO, Esevel

Prioritize Portfolios Over Algorithmic Puzzles

What is the best strategy for hiring multiple tech professionals at once? Focus on their portfolios, not their ability to ace every LeetCode problem.

I’ve seen companies hire candidates simply because they could “crack” an algorithmic puzzle during an interview, but that’s not how all tech jobs work. Sure, algorithmic tests are great for data scientists. Other roles, especially in software engineering, demand builders, not just problem-solvers.

Look for people who’ve shipped real projects or built scalable systems (it doesn’t matter if they’re open-source or personal projects). When you prioritize real-world skills over theoretical tests, you end up with people who can actually do the job from day one.

For entry-level roles, you can give them short project-based assessments. These can mimic on-the-job challenges. Many companies use this approach to attract talent that is ready to work in complex tech environments.

Stephen Greet, CEO & Co-Founder, BeamJobs

Establish Strong Presence on Target Campuses

1. Be sure to target schools that have programs and majors well-aligned with your tech mission.

2. Be PRESENT on those campuses, beyond just career days. Work your way into classrooms and collaborate with professors to highlight outstanding students. Sponsor on-campus workshops and hackathons, and invite students to join your teams for an inside look at a day in the life. Additionally, don’t approach this haphazardly; become a consistent presence at these schools. You won’t gain attention overnight.

3. Develop onboarding programs specifically designed for these new students. They will perform better if they bond with other new hires in similar situations. Try to have them start at the same time and incorporate both team-building activities and internal networking opportunities with more experienced teammates, in addition to day-to-day tasks.

4. When it comes to offering positions to students, extend offers to 25%-30% more students than you plan to hire. They have numerous opportunities, and you won’t secure all of them. Even a few of the students who accept an offer may change their minds and ultimately not join your company.

Todd Riesterer, Chief People Officer, Huntress

Optimize Recruiting Process with Data Analytics

When hiring many early-career tech professionals, consider your recruiting process as one that can be improved with data, similar to a sales funnel.

First, identify where candidates are dropping off. Is it after viewing the job advertisement, after completing the skills test, or before the interview? Track how candidates interact with each step of the process, just as you would track a marketing campaign.

In a recent large-scale tech hiring initiative, we tested different job posting titles, reduced the application form to under 90 seconds, and sent automated, personalized emails to those who didn’t complete their applications. These small, data-driven changes increased application completion by 38% and nearly halved our time to hire.

We learned that the same elements that make advertisements effective — clear information, simple steps, and follow-ups — also work well for recruiting. If you aim to hire numerous early-career individuals, design your recruiting process like a sales funnel.

Hiren Shah, Owner, Anstrex

Forge Long-Term Relationships with Educational Institutions

If you are someone looking for a perfect strategy to recruit quality candidates for technology jobs, this is my single best recommendation: Build strong, long-term relationships with local colleges and universities and host events like webinars and workshops.

You can also sponsor relevant student organizations and offer real-world projects that align with your tech stack. Above all, make direct connections with students and stand out as a desired employer/place to work.

This approach has consistently helped bring in a steady flow of fresh talent and identify motivated candidates with the right skills early on, even before they complete their graduation.

Amy Mortlock, Vice President, ShadowDragon