“Recruiting talent is no different than any other challenge a startup faces. It’s all about selling.”
– Vivek Wadhwa, (American Technology Entrepreneur & Academician)
We have seen how technology has made a smooth move from being a choice to a mandatory investment for startups as well as giant organizations. Nowadays, entrepreneurs have understood the significance of integrating advanced tech tools to propel operational efficiency.
In contemporary tech-driven landscape, developers have become essential for businesses as they can create intuitive and reliable software platforms. But do you know the process of hiring the best developers is specifically tricky for startup geeks? Yes, because there is a shortage of developers all across the globe.
As per Indeed, there is a demand gap in the US tech market where entrepreneurs are struggling hard to hire the top programming talent. Moreover, according to LinkedIn, the State of Startups report revealed that appointing the right engineering professionals is the 2nd hardest roles to fill for budding brands.
These insights have made it evident that hiring developers is a daunting task for startups. But this can be streamlined with understanding a few key tips to hire developers who suit your specific business requirements on a reasonable cost. Let’s look at five such tips with which you can identify, filter, and interview the best developers without emptying your startup bank.
- Plan Well In Advance & List Down Your Specific Requirements
You have to realize that making a decision in haste is of no use and hence plan the hiring in advance. First of all, begin with understanding the market and demand for developers. List down the specific skills that you want your potential developers to have.
Based on the skill set you can create an ideal job profile which can be used to evaluate and screen applicants. Keep your budget in mind and avoid paying too much attention to academics as a qualifying criterion.
Finalize the tech stack you want to pick for your upcoming software project as it will be a major criterion for shortlisting potential programming talent. Also, make sure that in which language you want your digital product to be coded in. So, gain a basic idea of various programming platforms such as Python, Ruby, PHP, etc. which will make it easier for you to cherry-pick the right candidate.
- Identify The Appropriate Approach To Hiring Engineers For Your Startup
There are several approaches to recruit software professionals for your startup such as going for hiring freelance developers or exploring inbound recruiting for finding the right candidates. Also, you can appoint full-time, in-house developers or look for employing the remote ones. It all depends on your specific needs and financial capacity. Let’s take a look at each one of these approaches.
Developing and retaining an in-house or full-time development team can be quite expensive. Also, it’s not feasible for every startup. But outsourcing developers or partnering with remote developers can be a good alternative. Such development teams are cost-effective and flexible in nature. Moreover, in this approach, you get access to a diverse pool of applicants.
On the other hand, hiring freelance developers is also an economical option for your startup. But you can’t rely completely on these professionals each and every time. Also, it’s much more difficult to maintain seamless collaboration with freelancers. So, it’s advisable to assess the portfolio and technical skills of potential candidates in case you make a decision to work with freelance developers.
- Gain An Idea Of Relevant Places Where You Can Easily Find Efficient Software Developers
Irrespective of your decision to hire freelancers or working with an outsourced developer both the cases need you to be familiar with the places where you can find these professionals easily. Digitization is ubiquitous and hence the online platforms are one of the best tools to find the best developers for your startup. Let’s take a look at a few digital resources that you can get developers applying for jobs.
- Professional networking platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Quora, Twitter, Snapchat, Google+, Reddit, Instagram, etc. have become integral resources for identifying and recruiting the right talent. Also, you can explore the prior experience and reviews for a particular programmer.
In addition, Clutch Reviews can be one of the best sourcing platforms in case you are looking to hire an outsourced development team for your startup. Here you can find a team which is aligned to meet your specific business needs.
- There are online communities specifically for developers such as GitHub and Stack Overflow where you can easily discover talented engineers. On these platforms, developers showcase their coding skills and ideas which you can use as evaluation criteria to filter the good ones from the lot.
III. You can utilize your peer network and get good recommendations for locating the best programming team. While doing market research you can connect with different technical or marketing teams in order to get good references. Also, you can participate in different events to grow your network for getting relevant suggestions.
- Gigster, Toptal, and Hired are the three most popular freelancing platforms where you can get access to a wide pool of talented freelance developers. In case you are looking to hire a single developer on a contract basis these platforms can be the best alternative for your startup.
- Integrate Tech Tools To Streamline The Screening & Interviewing Processes
Everyone wants quick results in this fast-paced world and due to lack of enough capital, you can’t invest much on hiring third-party recruiting services for your startup. This is why it’s good to leverage tech tools and platforms for efficient job candidate screening and assessment of applicants.
As per LinkedIn, there is a need to transform your hiring strategy and cope up with the latest industry trends shaping the future of recruiting and hiring. Let’s look at the top recruiting trends for today and beyond in the image:
All the above trends demand you to be tech-savvy and embrace advanced software systems and technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) for streamlining the hiring process. Therefore, you can use different HR management software such as Zoho People or Bamboo HR for helping you in evaluating the tech stack expertise and previous work of thousands of shortlisted developers.
These tools can match you with relevant developers and help you in giving them assignments. Also, you can leverage these platforms to filter developers who know how to build intuitive digital products by developing a strategic roadmap. Picking programming professionals with the experience of building reliable products with roadmapping can help you in analyzing different ideas and iterating it in order to end up with a product/market fit.
- Be Prepared With Unique Strategies For Retaining The Best Till The End
Nowadays, because of dynamism and excessive demand retaining techies is also important for startups. It’s tricky in this volatile landscape but you have to come up with a few out-of-the-box tactics and ways to retain tech talent.
For instance, provide your developers with the harmonious work culture and a friendly environment. Also, you can reward exceptional performers by offering competitive benefits such as incentives and constant training sessions to enhance their skills.
Bonus Tip
Along with having a right hiring approach and process, it’s equally important to know the factors on which the cost of hiring a top-notch programmer depends. Let’s look at the major ones:
- The scope of your project whether it’s simple or complex. Also, what type of functionality or features you want to integrate with your digital product determines the cost of hiring a programmer.
- The tech stack and programming language which you choose for your software development project has an impact on the total cost of partnering with a developer. For example, hiring a full-stack programmer is a bit more expensive than going for front-end and back-end experts.
- The geographical location of the developers affect the cost of hiring as choosing freelancers or remote developers is cheaper than hiring a full-time development team from a first world country.
Efficient developers can build great tech-driven platforms for your startup. So, never miss an opportunity to work with a tech enthusiast. Moreover, come up with your own ways to discover and recruit the top developers within limited funds and don’t hesitate to share them with your peers.
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