With a growing software development company, you will be attracting a lot of new clients. At some point, you may find yourself and your team overloaded with work. And then comes the time to hire new developers for your team. This is not an easy task so we prepared a quick and clear guide to help you in this process.
At Visian Systems we are often searching for new developers and freelancers when we have a sudden increase in our demands. In the last years, our team has almost triplicated with all the projects we acquired. That gave us a lot of experience with hiring developers mainly through online platforms since our team is entirely remote.
In this article we will share with you the most valuable lessons we learned in this period. And we hope they will help you to find more talents for your business as well. Nonetheless, you can also consider contacting us because we can also help your company and your team with more complex tasks.
Where to start looking to hire new developers?
Today you will find a lot of agencies offering services of recruitment & selection. Some of them exclusively target the software development market. But the problem is that this kind of service usually charges high prices. So, if your HR department doesn’t have enough budget to spend on a hiring process, you should look for alternative and cheaper options.
First, you can always count on networking. Try to reach old co-workers and partners and see if they are or know anyone available for the job. And while we are talking about networking, LinkedIn is another great source to find new developers. You will have access to their professional profiles that will assist you in checking if they meet the standards for the particular job. Also with the tag #OpenForWork will be easier to identify developers with availability.
But LinkedIn also has a problem in that more than a few profiles are private. So unless you are connected to the users or have a premium recruiter account you will have trouble contacting them. So another alternative is to look in outsourcing marketplaces such as Upwork, Freelancer and Guru. They all have more fair prices for job postings. You can even find free options like Hubstaff Talent.
Don’t forget to read all these platforms’ rules!
Personally, we had a great experience with Upwork in looking for new developers. Their platform is also a good source to find new projects and potential clients for your business. You can also contact us over our profile at Upwork.
Write a clear job description
Regardless of the platform you have chosen to search for new developers you will need to create a job description. You should be direct and concise about the specific skills you are looking for. In the description focus on these four main points: tasks/activities the hired developer will be doing, the tech stack for the project, how many hours of work per day or per week and, of course, the rate you be willing to pay.
For the first two items, you should discuss them with your development team. They can point out the most desired skills for a new hire. Try to highlight the most essential activities so you don’t have a very long job description. Unless you are looking for a professional to fill a high position in your company.
For the hours, don’t forget to highlight your time zone if you will look for developers in different countries. And in a few cases if you don’t work with more flexible hours you should also point out the period of the day the developer must be online.
For the rate, try to be as fair as possible. Platforms like Upwork have tools that will show you the average rates charge for the specific jobs you are looking for so try to adapt to your budget. You can always negotiate a fixed payment if this suits you better.
Scheduling and conducting an online interview
Once you managed to make the first contact with a potential hire the next step is to schedule a meeting. You can use any platform of your preference. We recommend Zoom or Google Meet since they have free versions and are very stable for communication via the web.
Also, another tool that will assist you a lot in scheduling interviews is Calendly. It is a tool for scheduling, preparing and following up on external meetings. And what makes things even easier it’s that you can sync your calendar with your Google Agenda profile and schedule meeting without mixing up with your other appointments. You just have to set your time preferences and the platform will create a calendar with all the dates you have available automatically.
And always be prepared for your interview. Read the interviewees’ curriculum and write a note highlighting the most valuable information about their skills and listing a few questions to ask in the interview. Always start with a polite greeting to create a relaxed environment and “break the ice” without losing professionalism.
And don’t forget to test your equipment before the interview starts to not waste time.
Our interviews usually have three phases. First, we introduce ourselves, about our activities and explain the job and what we are looking for. After that, we give the interviewees a few minutes to talk about their experiences. In the last phase, we ask questions about their profiles and also answer any doubts they might have about the job. When finishing the interview don’t forget to thank them for their time and try to give you an estimate for when you can give you a decision about the hiring.
If you have more time to spend in the hiring process you can schedule a second meeting with one of your teammates present to have a more technical interview of the developer. Or have just a single interview with your teammate invited.
Look out for scammers developers
One of the challenges you face while trying to hire developers through the internet is that you may run into scammers. Sadly we can’t always be sure of whom we meet on the Internet, so we have a few tips to spot red flags for potential scammers.
- Check if the developers are on any social network and if the information they provided you match.
- Watch out for suspicious e-mail addresses like ones with a lot of numbers or strange words.
- Review their history in the platform and check the companies that developers said they have worked on
- If you are using Calendly to schedule your interviews you can check if the timezone of the e-mail matches the time zone of the profile
- Check if their profile is not mimicking other accounts
- In the interview, ask the developers to turn on their videos. If they come up with excuses to not do so, you should be alert
Moreover, platforms like Upwork have processes to verify information and confirm the identity of person’s account. But some users already reported cases of people trying to user or buy their verified profiles. So you should still be careful even when you are trying to hire developers with verified accounts.
Now it’s up to you
The rest of the process will depend on your company’s culture. You should review all the profiles and the notes you wrote about the interviews with your team. Select the best candidates and if you want you can have a second round of interviews to clarify more details and decide which one you will hire. You can have a two-week trial period for the hired developers to evaluate if they work well with your team and your company’s organisation before offering a long-term contract.
And don’t forget to provide feedback for the ones that weren’t hired. You may also want to save their profiles in your database for when you have to hire more developers or in case you don’t like the performance of the last hiring.
Conclusion
To hire developers online is not much of a difference from hiring them personally. We created this simple but insightful guide to help businesses, but mostly other software companies, to have a proper process of hiring. Especially if they are creating an online company. with remote employees. Check more of our blog to see more tips about how to improve your business. You can also check our website.
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