26.08.2021

How Do You Attract Passive Developers?

It is crucial that when you kickstart a software engineer recruitment drive you have this awareness and understanding of how developers think and behave in order to place them in your live roles.

It’s worth taking into account what passive developer candidates are usually like. This is their typical situation:

  • They are usually in a job that they are quite happy with 
  • They won’t actively apply for jobs (and therefore you need to go to them with opportunities!)
  • They tend to prefer email over calls as it’s less intrusive. However, they are regularly bombarded with job offers so don’t have a high response rate
  • They are experienced enough to not have to jump through loads of hoops to secure a new role
  • They often refuse to engage unless something really catches their attention and their individual interest
  • They may not take a role even if it is offered to them

With over ten years' worth of experience successfully recruiting developers, we have the tools to work with you to develop a proposition that makes your role stand out from the crowd. These are designed to talk directly to developers and therefore increase the likelihood that they will engage.

At Nixor, we’ve created a ‘developer needs wheel’ that outlines the extent to which we understand developers. How they work, how they think and what they usually expect from a new role. Every software engineer is different and having a personal relationship with each candidate is crucial to fully understand their requirements and expectations. 

By looking at our ‘developer needs wheel’ you can see just how many factors go into the decision-making process for developers when they consider a new role and a new employer. Recruiters and hiring managers need to refer to as many of these requirements as possible (in detail!) when starting a recruitment drive.

When adopting this method, we manage to source 4 times as many profiles and they are very often, the strongest, passive candidates that are culturally aligned.

Do you want to nail your next developer hire with our strategic support? Get in touch to talk through how we can support you.