How to Maximise the Success of Your Developer Hiring Process

Developers don’t drop out at the interview stage or reject offers for roles they really want.

So why does this keep happening?
It could be because they don’t like what your role has to offer or it could be that they don’t know enough about the role or company and need more detail. More often than not, it’s because they have made assumptions about the role and/or company because of the lack of detail that’s been provided to them. 
Here’s how to kickstart your developer hiring process:

Start strong from the get go

Tell your recruiter or the person in charge of managing candidate experience everything you think a developer may want to know before considering a new job with your company. Alternatively, think about what you would want to know before accepting a new role. Developers are passive in nature and don’t like to waste their time, so ensuring that they are engaged in the interview process is much easier if they feel like the end result is something they really want. 

Make sure your processes are efficient and engaging

Developers become increasingly frustrated when recruiters and hiring managers are slow to react after initial conversations. Developers quickly form a judgement on companies that don’t make an effort to respond efficiently to CVs and they will hold it against you in the future. It’s important to remember that developers exist in a marketplace swarmed with job opportunities and so won’t have any issues finding another position elsewhere, therefore turnaround needs to be quick. From our experience, the time taken to hire a candidate is less than eight days when CV acknowledgement is provided within a 24 hour submission window. This jumps to 21 days to hire when CV feedback is provided within 48 hours. This example demonstrates just how important it is to remain agile and rapid when recruiting developers. 

Set up your interviews quickly

From our wide developer talent pool, we are hearing more and more that developers are fed up with the cognitive load of several technical interviews and tests. They understand that the interview process will be time consuming and challenging and more often than not, enjoy the challenge, but they don’t want to have loads of separate interviews. Keep your interviews to one or two maximum to ensure your developer candidate stays focused and engaged. If you don’t do this, you will be missing out on hiring opportunities as other companies will be hiring and interviewing more efficiently.

Keep up communication

Ensure you keep speaking to your developer candidates throughout the hiring process. The more conversations you have with them, the more you will learn about them and what they are looking for. You can gauge what motivates them and ensure that they are aligned to your role. Of course motivations can change however the more you can gauge from the interview process the more you can steer your questions in a more bespoke way to the candidate, showing that you have listened to what they have said and also ensuring that they are the perfect fit for the role and the company. This approach will dramatically increase your chances of securing the right talent for your company and help with retention in the long run.

Benchmark against your specifications, not the market’s

It’s really important that you make your search and interview process dependent on your specific role. You need to know the level you are hiring for and make your decisions based on that. If you like someone you interview and they meet the specifics of your criteria, make them an offer. Obviously if you already have people lined up for an interview, don’t let them down, but just ensure you don’t go back out to the market to search for other potential candidates when you have a perfectly good candidate waiting. 

Is company culture important to you and your business?

If so, we suggest you start your interview process with human interaction rather than a technical test to make the best first impression. If the first element of your interview process is a technical test it doesn’t give off the greatest example of a company that values a good attitude and a personality. Of course technical ability is incredibly important for a developer role, we simply recommend the first point of contact being more human in approach. Check out our other blog on really getting to know your candidates here. [include link]

Make your technical test reasonable and worthwhile

We understand that technical tests are necessary, however make sure it isn’t a lengthy process that wastes your time and your candidate’s time. Companies that require candidates to complete tests that are over two hours long often have much longer time to hire periods and miss out on the best talent. This is because developers are passive in nature and will go elsewhere knowing that there are other job opportunities available to them.

If you’re looking to kickstart and refresh your developer hiring processes and find the best talent in a high-demand market, we’re the perfect partner to make this happen.

To be able to successfully place and retain your next developer hire, you need to fully understand what they want and need. With our developer-specific knowledge and a collaborative working relationship, a partnership with Nixor works to your benefit.

Speak to us today for more information on how Nixor can help you find the perfect candidate. Click here