Hiring a freelance developer to turn your digital projects into a profitable nugget requires careful research. So, to help you find the best web developer for a team extension, here are some tips to consider before you start your recruiting adventure!
What do you need to know before hiring an app developer?
What you have seen in the past is the best predictor of what you will see in the future. Take a hard look at their previous work before employing a web developer. Request case studies that demonstrate their work or real programs that you can utilize to gauge the quality.
Active recruitment campaign
Most currently employed developers are open to new opportunities. Developers searching for work are hard to come by, so don’t be afraid to go elsewhere if you see an aggressive recruitment effort.
Placing a standard job posting on a generic website will not suffice. With penurious profiles, you must be astute in order to attract them. This will be accomplished, in part, through a tailored and well-targeted recruiting drive.
List your requirements
This is the initial stage in the hiring procedure. What are your specifications? Be cautious; they must be tied to the achievement of your objectives and the fulfilment of your consumers’ expectations.
Consider the following:
- What are my long-term aims and ambitions for my online projects?
- How will my project address the demands of its users?
- What enhancements will the developer provide?
- What characteristics will he need to consider?
You can begin composing your ad with these first questions.
What type of developer do you need?
There are actually many web developers that should be differentiated from the start. Each developer has one or more specialties in which he is an expert. To determine which profile you’ll need, start by asking yourself what technical skills you’ll need.
If their job is to take care of the client side of the website or app, you’ll need a front-end developer. If you need it to manage the server part, then it will be a matter of finding a back-end developer. If you want it to be able to take care of both at once, then you need to look for a fullstack developer.
Be interested in soft skills
Before getting interested in technical skills, the recruiter must make sure that he understands the candidate’s personality and how well he will integrate into the team.
The most talented developers code with passion. Therefore, interests and personal experiences are important elements that can make a difference, for example, participation in hackathons. Other examples: we had a candidate who created a gaming platform for autistic people in an associative environment, or another who created tools to help professional integration.
Test hard skills
How can you tell whether a candidate has mastered the advertised technical skills? One of the most challenging parts for a recruiter is this.
A technical exam is frequently necessary to assess applicants’ hard skills. You can, for example, play coding games. However, make sure they aren’t too long, no more than 30 to 45 minutes. A backend developer in any company, for example, Intellectsoft, will not be able to accomplish the job of a frontend developer since they use distinct programming languages and tools.
Experience: relative importance?
Most developers learned their skills on their own. In addition, since languages, methods, tools, and computer technology are constantly evolving, a good developer must, above all, be constantly on the lookout.
Thus, the developer is in continuous learning. He experiments, learns from his failures, has to know how to get out of his comfort zone, and is often an enthusiast who also codes personal projects outside of work hours.
Therefore, a young developer without professional experience can be as competent as a developer with 5 years of experience in the company. So focus not on professional experience, but on skills, soft skills, possible personal projects of your candidates.
Should you outsource IT recruitment?
Selection of a technical profile requires a special approach and skills of recruiters. Should the team extension be done in-house or outsourced? A difficult question to solve. In any case, recruiting an IT profile cannot be improvised.
First, look at the frequency and volume of recruitment in your company: Do you typically recruit technical profiles? How many positions need to be filled?
Then see if you have skills in-house or if one of your recruiters is interested in learning more about the world of IT. Also look at your recruitment processes: are they adapted to these profiles? Finally, see if you are looking for a specific technical profile.
Based on all these answers, you will know whether it is better to entrust the selection of personnel to a specialized recruitment agency, to do it internally, or to use a PRO recruiter to temporarily strengthen your recruiting teams. But still, besides this, there are other issues.
What to avoid when hiring a developer
If you want to get the most out of your company’s new hiring, avoid the following blunders.
Ineffective integration techniques
One of the most popular ways to fail a freshly recruited software engineer is to put them on a never-ending sprint with no explanation.
Giving enough assistance to novice developers
Implementing a new environment always necessitates a focus on the project goals, work being completed, and obstacles the team is encountering. It’s also a good idea to go through job processes, business culture, and duties.
Uncertain expectations
When you recruit software engineers without informing them of your expectations, you make life tough for the entire team.
Make it about more than money.
You should be clear about the sort of return on investment you anticipate from this job. Developers, like any other employee, have a variety of motives and demands.
In any event, keeping the top software development talent is about more than simply money. Corporate culture, team structure, project quality, and focus are all factors to consider.
The project you develop should be managed by a good project manager, and a good project architect should properly assist the manager. The future web development team must be well selected. Your costs will be justified only if each step of the development of the web application is managed by specialists.
