June 10th, 2019 | Updated on April 11th, 2020
With the rapid technologization of business, all companies face a need to hire developers from time to time. While large corporations can afford huge investments into their tech staff and recruit top talent, small businesses often face the need to hire one developer, as good as possible.
The cost of mistake may be too high with the SMEs’ pressing budgets and the need to invest into growth. To help such companies out, expert recruiters of Qubit Labs have prepared some handy tips for effective and quick recruitment of ideally matched developers.
1. Be Active
The first professional tip is not to stop on the publication of a vacancy at some job-hunting platform.
Some companies believe that it is enough to get a needed staff member to their team, but the truth is that good specialists are rarely in an active job search, screening available vacancies and sending out hundreds of applications.
To hire a developer with an impressive track record and a needed tech stack, you should screen multiple resources with resumes, contact candidates on your own, and invite them to apply for your vacancy.
Here is a couple of ways to maximize the outcomes of your developer search instead of sitting and waiting for the ideal candidate to knock at your door:
- Study the resumes of job seekers at job-hunting websites
- Ask family members, friends, acquaintances from your gym or book club – who knows, maybe they know some developer looking for a job right now
- Look through the database of candidates you dismissed during previous developer searches; maybe this time they will fit your needs better
- Look for candidates in the social media. It’s highly productive to use your social outreach via networks such as LinkedIn to find developers as this is a professional network in which most people are serious about finding or giving new jobs.
2. Be Realistic
To hire a developer quickly and without frustrations, make sure you understand quite clearly what you need from that new staff member and how much you are ready to pay for that.
Then study the local labor market to see whether the rates you set are realistic for the talent you wish to recruit.
If there is an evident gap and you see that local developers charge much more than you are ready to pay, then maybe it’s more reasonable to look for outsourcing solutions? Here’s a couple of hacks:
- Evaluate your budget – are you ready to pay for an in-house staff member?
- Think over freelancing – the cheapest option. Are you ready to take the risks and forgo some security measures?
- If none of the variants is suitable, then think of outsourcing or staff augmentation. The former approach means giving away the entire project to an outsourced team, while the latter presupposes getting a remote team member to work together with your in-house coders. Which option suits you more?
3. Be Specific
The best about hiring a new developer is to know exactly whom you wish to see in the team. You’ll minimize the time of closing a vacancy if you compile a very detailed job description in which you set expectations and goals precisely.
Such a description will be a roadmap for your applicants to see whether they fit the vacancy, and for you – as a checklist for candidate pre-screening before wasting extra time on job interviews.
It’s even more critical to have a detailed and concise job description if you hire a vendor to find you a developer. In case there is vagueness in descriptions, you will be tortured by recruiters’ constant calls, emails, and inquiries for clarifications.
4. Be Appealing
Don’t forget that recruitment is a dialogue in which not only you choose a worker, but the worker also chooses an employer with whom it will be comfortable for him or her to work on a daily basis.
Hence, to attract employees and to engage them into your project, you need to present the vacancy and the company overall in a favorable light.
Voice the benefits that your developer will get if he/she agrees to work for you; mention development and training opportunities, office perks, fringe benefits, etc. Developers like receiving more than a bare salary, and that’s a good way to engage them.
5. Be Cautious
Hiring a wrong person is a huge waste – of money, time, and resources. So, it’s better to be safe than sorry. To make sure that you are hiring indeed the person with the right knowledge of programming languages and technology you need, subject the candidates to testing. If you are hiring remote employees, double- or triple-check their knowledge before making the job offer.
Here’s the toolkit for small businesses hiring developers. Use these tips to minimize risks and maximize your business value. Hiring may be easy!