Posts tagged "recruiting process"

How to Hire the Perfect Junior Developer

May 16, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

Often time, the manager of a software development team makes the mistake of seeking qualified individual outside the organization body to fit into a sensitive group like support, customer service department, project management department, administrative department and so on.

They do this by investing so much a time that could have been ventured into staff development of individuals within his team who shows a ready mind to learn and passion for career advancement.

The conventional method of recruiting a new member into your team can be a good idea but the time imputed into the process of portfolio check and documents assessment could also be used in training these new recruits within their department into becoming productive junior developers.

This idea of seeking and Recruiting Readymade developers to perfectly fit into your organization can be so frustrating when these new recruits exhibit very poor customer services, full of complaints, a questionable personality and unnecessary concern over members view.

While software developers within your team are already acquitted with so much activity that has kept your organization in good shape. Therefore, appropriate grooming of these onboard developers in other facets could enhance greater performance you need.

Coding languages are easier to learn than customer empathy and product insight.

Another excellent method that the software development manager uses in driving his team to proficiency and growth is looking out for potential individual within his team or organization who shows interest in coding and ready to learn.

Most of the non-technical staff of your organization may have the intellectual substance of becoming a great developer. All they need is training and practice because these set of talented individuals already know about your product, have grounded experience in maintaining a unique customer service relation and also know about customer regular demands and so on.

Resisting the resistance to hiring outside of traditionally trained engineers

There is a general belief that engineers are extremely introverts, not a customer kind of people. This mindset requires that in choosing or selecting a potential developer in other departments, you must be sure to train them to become good developers and/or technicians.

This might be right so that your team could comprise skilled individuals to help drive your organization forward. These traditionally trained engineers are quickly detected due to their excellent customer services and productivity. So hiring from these set of trained individuals will improve the team performance and customer relations.

Onboarding new hires who are already on board

To afford countless benefits as a software development team manager, exhibit or practice internal recruiting system. This is because the level of the connection and understanding between various departments is a very good catalyst for rapid growth.

Therefore, the experienced manager knows from the outset that recruiting from those already onboard is better compared to hiring a new set of developers outside the team. Those who practice external recruitment are faced with personality clash of employees, series of uncontrollable insubordination and lack of proper customer services at the early stage.

To avoid these experiences require you to practice more of internal recruitment of employees than external recruitment.

Another benefit you can derive from onboard hiring is a rapid growth of your organization due to the open-mindedness of your team members, improved customer service relation, empathy, customer concern and honesty among members of your team.

Customized training to make Job-ready junior developers

When you consider and compare the cost of finding and hiring developers outside your organization to training your employees along with a specific language or framework, you will know why it is so important to up-skilling your team.

Many of these potential developers might not even know how to become one but your system of training will help shape them into what will transform your organization for good.

To further save you the stress of reviewing numerous portfolios online in the search of qualified individuals and reduce time wastage in looking out for talented people when career pathed of your team members cost almost nothing than training them, it is best suggested to train your developers along that needed framework to move your team forward.

Employer

Tech Recruiting: Hire for Fit, Train for Skills

May 14, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

Being a hiring manager in a tech firm can be very challenging. Virtually none of the candidates who applied to fill a certain role has the perfect blend of skills required for that role, to the extreme perplexity and frustration of hiring managers. For example, you can post a vacancy for the post of say, JavaScript Developer, and then not quite long after, you have already received a plethora of applications on your desk. There is nothing bad in this; in fact, you will be excited to go through the ‘interesting applications’ if you are a rookie hiring manager. But then you begin to go through the applications, you look at the CV of the applicants and then your headache begins; it is possible to have a seasoned candidate who has undertaken a lot of projects but is not conversant with the latest technologies. Another candidate is a master of JavaScript but does not have an academic qualification, and so on. Where one candidate is lacking competency, he makes up for it in other areas. As a hiring manager, you are in a dilemma – technical skills are essential, but how would you get the perfect candidates to suit the specific tasks you are hiring them for?

Fortunately, there are a number of methods to vet a candidate and verify their suitability for a job. These methods include:

Asking the candidate to provide their portfolio.
Giving them a programming problem to solve.
Request them to physically come for a programming exercise together with another program.

For what reason do these methods work for several firms who follow them? All things considered, investigate the main reasons employees do not do well in their roles. Obviously, specialized fitness can be a central reason. However, as a rule, chiefs battle with workers that are creating a ruckus due to their poor relational abilities, no longing to team up, or an absence of responsibility. Delicate abilities are hard to prepare for. You either have them or you don’t.

To ensure that a candidate fits your company, you should begin by asking questions that align with your core values. Do ensure to make the interview a conversational one, and not an interrogation. Based on some core values, these are some of the questions you could ask:

Individual Accountability – ask whether there had been a time when the candidate committed an error.

Team Work – try to inquire if the candidate has ever taught a colleague a skill before. Ask the candidate to expatiate on this.

Understudy Focus – Has the candidate at any point failed to adhere to a deadline due to the client not being satisfied with something in their work?

Work-Life Integration – they could describe how an effective day looks like to them.

People-Centered Design – try to see how the candidate would describe a technical concept to a non-specialized client

Fiercely Competitive Nature – What tech aptitudes would they be possibly keen on learning apart from the current skills they possess?

It is just not good for you to ignore potential fit issue just because the candidate has top-notch technical skills. And while it is important that a candidate has the skills required to execute projects, it is equally important, if not more important, to engage the services of a worker who fits into the company.

Employer

Sell your New Developer Hiring Strategy to Managers

March 7, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

As a recruiter, you need to stay on top of your game to find strong candidates and attract good applications. Remaining loyal to a set of techniques is not effective on the long-term and also kind of dull. So you decide to release your inner creative demon and come up with an amazing new strategy that could innovate how you attract talent. But before you can actually use it, you need to get the OK from your C-Suite.

When preparing your presentation, it is helpful to pay attention to three main aspects in order to have a successful first pitch.

No. 1 Build your presentation in a progressive manner that will strike their concerns

Managers who are not closely connected with the tech team cannot totally empathize with the pain of being understaffed. Therefore, you need to make them understand how this has an impact on the business.

Therefore, make sure to clearly outline what makes your idea a great one in their business context and how valuable it is. Speak their language!

For example, the vice-president of Marketing does not employ developers in his team so he can’t fully grasp their role. However, when the marketing team needs to develop some software to use in campaigns, they will need to come to the developers hired by you. Here is your cue to paint them a picture of the developer hiring process and its importance. Show them how your strategy is important to them, not to you.

No. 2. Key Performance Indicators should be your best friends

Numbers tell great stories. This is why you need to be able to explain to your C-suite, in numbers, how you will assess the effectiveness of your strategy. During your presentation, you should deliver some expected numbers and results.

If, for instance, you plan to use salary ranges in your job advertisements, talk to them about the increased traffic this change would bring. More traffic means more applications to sort through. Be ready to explain to them how you’re planning to check whether this change will positively impact recruitment.

No. 3 Listen to their opinions and use them

Listening to feedback is a power tool. But not just polite nodding while you stick to your idea, but actual active listening. Even if you have a strong strategy in place, more ideas can lead to even better plans. Not to mention that your relationship with executives will grow stronger.

It doesn’t mean that you need to accept all their ideas. Be brave and out-spoken when their pitch isn’t good for your initiative and they will respect you more. Make this presentation a conversation instead of a one-man speech looking for applause in the end. Whatever you do, always place yourself in a position that shows you have the company’s best interests at heart.

Employer

Is Your Candidate Experience up to Par? Ask Yourself These 5 Questions:

February 12, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

According to CareerBuilder, a good number of candidates see the candidate experience as an indicator of how much a company values its people. Every contact with candidates throughout the recruitment process is a chance for them to learn more about your company. Considering how important these interactions are, it is important that your company positions and portrays itself accurately.

Applicants generally hope to validate their preconceived perception about your company using the candidate experience. Since the recruiting process provides a glimpse into the daily life of the organization they may soon be joining it is important that you ensure that your candidate experience is up to par with the needs of the job seekers. Here are 5 important questions you can use to evaluate this.

How Good Are Your Job Descriptions?

Your job description is most times the first contact a candidate has with you. As yourself this, what do candidates see when they open the job listings on your website. Are they seeing generic posts which can be filled by just anyone on the street or they get a clear picture of the specific requirements of every position including a comprehensive list of the goals and responsibilities they will be required to fulfill?

If you want to make a good first impression then your job description is one of the important places to look at. Try to make sure it answers every question the candidate might have about a position and your organization including the vision and mission of your company, the structure, and culture of your organization as well as the benefits packages of the position.

Does Your Candidate Experience Reflect Your Culture As a Company?

The recruitment process should be aimed at giving candidates a taste of the culture within your organization. Your candidate experience should be based on the values of your internal culture. For example, if your company is team focused, ask candidates to demonstrate how well they can perform in a team or invite them to meet multiple team members within your company to demonstrate how you emphasize on teamwork.

Do You Have A Mobile-Friendly Recruiting Process?

These days everyone is on their phone and as a modern company, it is important that you keep up with the trends. The bulk of traffic to your recruitment pages is from mobile devices which means for convenience your career site should be mobile-friendly.

How Great Is Your Follow-Up?

While it is true that breaking a bad new isn’t easy on anyone, you owe it to the candidates to inform them about their status in the recruitment process. It also helps your company’s reputation as well. Let the promising candidates know that they did well even if you will not be able to employ them. Also, try to let the declined candidates why they didn’t get the position and what they could have done better to improve their chances the next time. This way you maintain a good reputation with the candidates and increase the chances of them applying for future positions in your company

What Do The Candidates Have To Say About You?

Asking the people that have gone through it to evaluate it is one way to get a picture of how great your candidate experience was. Ask your new hires to give feedback about the recruitment process. This will give you an idea on which part of the candidate experience you need to change or improve upon.

Not everything that works great for the company is great for the candidates. These questions will help you if you are thinking of adjusting and improving your candidate experience in 2019