Every recruiter goes through the tidal wave of complexities while hiring a developer. There are uncertainties on judging their coding expertise or maybe justifying their experience. One of the major abilities required to hire a developer is to check higher proficiency but considering the current multifaceted scenario, it is not the only deciding factor. To ensure the success of the organization in terms of achieving its mission, vision, and objectives, companies need to broaden their evaluating horizons when hunting for the right resource.
This article will take you to the accurate roadmap of landing on the potential developer you can hire for your organization. But before you jump on discovering hiring essentials, know that recruitment should be done smartly because it is a pricey affair. It takes a lot of the recruiter’s time to conduct interviews, onboard employees, and provide them the essential training. Remember that a single mistake while hiring a developer may cost a huge amount.
Moreover, another significant aspect before beginning your hunt for developers is considering the development platform i.e. iOS/Android, Web, etc. for which you need to hire a developer. This will simplify and filter down your research and will give you the right candidates’ options while saving your time and budget.
For instance, if your team needs to develop an:
iOS application
In this case, you will have to hire an iOS app developer with skills and expertise in Objective-C, Swift, and Cocoa Touch. The developer must have extensive experience with iOS frameworks such as Core Data and Core Animation. He/she must have good knowledge of Apple’s design principles and application interface guidelines and so on.
Android Application
For Android app development, you will have to hire an android developer with working proficiency and experience in Android SDK, familiarity with RESTful APIs to connect Android applications to back-end services, knowledge of Android UI design principles, patterns, and best practices, and a solid understanding of Google’s Android design principles and interface guidelines, etc.
Cross-Platform
If your client doesn’t want to develop a native app on the iOS/Android platform but is looking to develop an app that runs very well on both OS then you’ll have to hunt for cross-platform app developers. The cross-platform frameworks that the developer works on are Flutter, React Native, PhoneGap, Xamarin, Ionic, among others. The cross-platform app developers must also be well-versed in developing single-page applications using techniques including front-end routing, client-side templating, consuming JSON-based RESTful APIs.
Web Development
For website development, you need to hire dedicated team of web developers having proven working experience in programming languages like PHP, ASP.NET, Javascript, or Ruby on Rails.
Now that you know the exact hiring requirements, let’s quickly drill down the most popular ways of finding developers online.
Where and How To Hire Developers Online?
1. Freelance Websites
- Upwork This is a huge marketplace that makes your task much easier by just bifurcating the list of essential features i.e. skillset, experience, and other related areas you are looking for in a developer. The platform allows you to explore the top-class talents from corners of the world who are ready to work on an hourly basis at lower prices as well.
- Here is the list of points that you need to check to be more precise during your hiring process:
- Draft and share a significant job description with the required details that you are looking for in a candidate
- Check out the shortlisted candidates suggested by Upwork based on your requirements
- Select and schedule their interview/discussion to carry forward the further process.
- Freelancer It is one of the leading marketplaces which is known for finding developers, UI/UX designers, and other top freelancers. Recruiters find it easy to search for the top specialist and the process of finding them is very easy. They can just upload the project for which they are looking a specialist and the concerned person will respond to your query.
- Explore how freelancers make your task easy:
- Users can find the potential candidate based on these categories i.e. skills, contests, languages, hourly project rate, fixed project rates
- Now every category will display the number of specialists trying to collaborate with your project and you can easily find the one you are looking for.
- Toptal is another well-known platform known to recruit the best suitable candidates without actually investing much time in the initial selection process from all over the world. The recruiter can look out for potential developers, designers, product/project managers, etc. The unique feature that attracts recruiters for the recruitment process is the excellent screening which measures a candidate on these parameters like professionalism, expertise, and communication skills. Have a look at the screening process used in this platform:
- Initially, a soft skill interview is conducted
- This followed by the technical interview and project test
- Only 3% of the candidates can pass the exam test which makes it easier for the recruiters to continue their recruiting process
2. Design Associations
- Dribbble It is a huge platform focused on experts in the field of animation, mobile/web design, and illustrations. The platform offers opportunities to recruiters to find the right set of skills, talent, and creativity in the form of the latest alluring designs. The design specialist uses this platform to showcase their creative work to escalate their career growth.Key steps to finding the potential experts in your niche:
- Know the requirements of your team and the type of designer they are looking for
- Prepare a detailed and striking Job description that creates curiosity among designers to join your team
- Wait for the designers to apply or send them an invite to join you
- Carry out the screening process to select qualified, experienced, and creative candidate
- Conduct interviews and design test to check their talent and abilities
- Behance Behance is a kind of social networking platform specially created for designers to display their design creativity and get more exposure in the outer professional world. Using Behance, recruiters can easily explore the top specialists and their connections. The kind that is featured on the platform includes animation, mobile app development designs, illustrations, web designs, and more. There is a special job section where recruiters can find the quality leads and skip the chaos of endless scrolling to find the potential candidate.Steps to find a great designer on Behance:
- Behance has a range of discovery tools that can be used to search for the right set of skills and creative professionals that you are looking for.
- Follow top designers or creative experts on Behance as you can explore their comments, likes, and other activities along with their top designs.
- You can also share your required query on the job list and can yield the best potential candidates.
3. Stack Overflow
Stack Overflow is an online community, specially designed for programmers who can learn, share and connect with other experts to enhance their career growth opportunities. Majorly programmers post their questions or queries on the portal expecting that they will get the related answers.
The recruiters get access to explore a large number of professionals with direct search or they can post position opportunities on the job board and continue the screening process.
You can simplify your search using available features on the platform:
- Stack Overflow offers multiple badges and you can use them to sort your search
- To find out professional expertise and the opportunities they are looking for, recruiters can explore the careers section
- Also, there is an option to use tag search to get the list of relevant candidates
4. Github
Github is an online platform used by programmers to host their best projects, so that other users can get access to your past portfolio and tasks. The platform is specially used by other developers to make more informed decisions on any project; he/she will be able to cross-check their accuracy with other codes uploaded or they can either post their query on the job board section to land on the relevant result.
This platform also promotes teamwork and allows the team members to work collectively on the same project in one place. Thus, the members can update, edit, and replace the codes when needed and build a centralized channel. Eventually, these features help recruiters to find out detailed information about the potential candidate and it helps in their recruitment process.
5. LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the most popular platform to recruit candidates from all over the world. This is generally used because of the advantage of getting access to the candidate’s resume and other detailed information from their profiles and connections.
Other compelling reasons for recruiters to use LinkedIn are:
- It allows recruiters to share job opportunities where people can comment, like, and connect easily with the hiring person or company.
- Recruiters can easily get all the latest updates and plan their recruiter’s strategies based on the current industry scenario.
- This platform reduces the number of spam by letting the recruiter conduct reference checks immediately.
- Referral recruiting is another excellent feature that allows recruiters to find the best-fitted resource from their professional candidates along with the required feedback.
6. Staffing Agencies
Staffing agencies are the organizations that help recruiters to find out the potential local candidates who can join their professional team. The candidate selection process includes checking references, shortlisting candidates based on resume screening, and then conducting interviews with the concerned organizations to select them for the required position.
How staffing agencies can benefit recruiters while hiring developers:
- It saves a lot of recruiter’s time, training resources, and other related risks
- It reduces the cost of payroll and on-boarding employees
- Recruiters get the quick response to their queries and find the best suitable candidate
- A need for the short term can be resolved quickly
- The overall hiring process becomes much more cost-effective and efficient
7. Hiring Marketplaces
There are thousands of hiring marketplaces all around which makes the recruiter’s task easy and worthwhile. These marketplaces allow recruiters to gather a lot of information and simplify the waiting process so that you do need not look out on different sources. Using this platform, recruiters can reach out to the suitable candidate quickly which ultimately helps in making quick decisions.
To search in a more precise manner, there is an option to share a recruitment announcement where you can check candidates’ responses and decide the candidate you need to work with.
8. Job Boards
Job boards are the best search engines used by recruiters to upload their job openings and search the suitable candidate to gather resumes for the screening process. It offers recruiters useful, unique, and valuable opportunities and tools to find the best fit.
There are a few tech-specific job boards that can hasten the process by directly displaying the candidates for which they are looking.
Reasons how Job Boards can help you to hire developers easily:
- Get easy access to the wide variety and quality tech candidates
- Get the best results out of the recruitment campaigns and minimize recruiting time
- It is a cost-effective way of finding a suitable candidate as you can get immediate access to the experts as per your chosen area.
9. Social Media Channels
- Twitter Twitter is a platform where candidates are not looking for jobs but recruiters can find the candidates with the right set of skills.Recruiters just need to follow these simple strategies:
- Relevant tags are the master key to selecting the deserving candidates for your industry
- Use the power of Twitter advanced search
- Keep following different latest topics on Twitter to get the potential leads
- Reddit This platform doesn’t work exactly like social media but here is a huge community where you can increase your audience reach. It engages with other social media platforms and offers an opportunity to connect with skilled aspirants. This platform is also loved by tech-rich communities because they can easily share their ideas and put up a conversation over them.Follow these steps to find relevant candidates:
- Search candidates using Reddit Boolean strings
- Reach out to the relevant Reddit communities to connect with potential candidates
- Quora Quora is a great platform where you can connect with a huge audience by putting down your queries or resolving any common issues that other developers are facing.The best way to recruit candidates on quora is to:
- Let your conversation move in a stable flow
- Answer other’s queries with authority
- Check out the stats of the uploaded conten
- Facebook Facebook is the widely used social media platform where recruiters can easily find a potential candidate. It is gaining a lot of popularity these days because people are already spending a lot of time and therefore they can easily respond to the queries that you post.Tactics to use while hiring a developer on Facebook:
- Get data and insights using the Facebook Graph Search
- Join multiple IT groups where you can get the latest updates and find potential candidates
- Keep an eye on Facebook events and use relevant hashtags in your job posts
- Instagram It is the most trending platform where most of the youth population resides. Instagram is populated with visuals and therefore it is quite difficult to find developers here.So, recruiters can make use of these tactics to get relevant candidates:
- Post your job requirements in your Instagram stories
- Reach to the relevant candidates using the right set of hashtags
10. Paid Ads
Paid ads are the traditional ways to get leads in any kind of industry and recruiters can also use them to get potential candidates. It benefits recruiters with these many strategies like:
- It increases the ability of recruiters to target passive aspirants
- It facilitates you to increase your reach
- It assists in developing a long term strategy
- It allows recruiters to use the smart targeting features
Steps To Hire A Developer
- Create a well-written job description
To deliver the right set of expectations to the candidate, it is required to write a well-written job description. You must include areas like experience, skillset, cognitive capabilities, and other responsibilities that you are looking for.
- Choose the developer that understands your business
Impart some knowledge about the business idea that you are taking ahead in your journey. Candidates need to know the kind of work they are going to perform while choosing them for your project.
Always sticking to the resume is not the right approach to choosing candidates, rather you should check out their portfolio and find out the ability to perform tasks as per your expectations.
- Test them by giving assignment
It is very essential to test their skills based on your thoughts, ideas, and expectations, and giving them a test is the best way to check it.
Sometimes, asking a few practical questions related to your requirements will help you in making a clear decision about selecting the right candidate. Ask questions like:
- Give a detailed description of your current project
- Explain your interaction with your clients
- How will you tackle the project after its development phase? etc.
The Cost of Hiring A Developer
Estimating the cost factor is one of the most crucial parts while hiring the developer for your company. Cost estimation is not an easy task as you need to consider many factors and figure out a relatable cost.
Let’s discuss the factors in detail:
- Check out the type of candidate you are looking for i.e. Full time, freelance, or outsourcing
- Discuss complexities of the project
- Check out the location and the local pricing strategy of that area
- Consider the experience level of the candidate
This is not the final list but you can consider other factors depending on your project requirements and other related capacities.
Summing Up!
Recruiting the right candidates for your organization or project requires a lot of research. The recruiting starts with understanding your organizational needs and building strong relations and communications with the right communities, all around. Also, you must pay attention to the value you are expecting from your developer.
We have already discussed essential platforms and features to consider and we are sure that it will help you to land at your desired destination.