The developer hiring landscape is evolving constantly, yet many tech recruiters still rely on “proven” tactics that worked in the past. As a result of this, many developers go into recruitment conversations expecting the worst. However, developers have made no secret of how they want to be recruited, and what reasons will drive them away.
Change is difficult. If you find yourself struggling to find tech talent, you may already know that you need to change your approach. But to what? To help you, we will discuss a few of the most common developer hiring myths and why they should be avoided.
Do Not Sell Your Company to Developers
Even the largest companies on the planet rate employer branding as crucial to their success. Blend grew its engineering team by a massive 40% with employer branding content that clearly showcased their company mission.
Developers rate company culture highly when deciding upon a job offer. When hiring, ask yourself this: Will the developers know what makes your engineering culture exciting? Bear this in mind when you write a recruitment email, create a Company Page, or post a technical job listing.
Your Only Goal is to Hire the Developer You Need Now
It is unlikely your tech team is fully staffed right now. You could put off hiring until an engineering manager gives you a new role to work on, but this is a reactive approach to recruiting which will cause stress when the time comes for your company to grow again.
Don’t stop recruiting developers because you don’t have any open roles. By keeping in touch with any passive candidates you have an existing relationship with and building new ones, you have plenty of future employees in the pipeline. In turn, this will have a positive impact on your company’s reputation in the developer community.
Your Time-to-Hire Should Be Identical to Non-Tech Roles
The average time-to-hire is going up in all roles and it is increasing even faster for engineering jobs
Let’s break this down into all the steps for you to consider:
How long will it take you to advertise the role in all relevant channels?
How long will it take to identify suitable candidates?
How long does it take to interview all candidates?
How many days will you need to complete background checks, create, and extend job offers?
How long will it take to convince a candidate to accept?
All Developer Candidates Have the Same Hiring Profile
If you are looking for a Front-End Developer and a Back-end Developer, they may be joining the same team, but there will be differences you should bear in mind. Each candidate for each role will have different skill sets, career goals, and challenges. No developer will expect you to read and understand their coding programs, but they won’t want you to make generalizations about their characters based on it.
Find out your candidates’ career expectations. What are they interested in outside of work? What have they accomplished in their life? All candidates will give different answers to all of these questions and knowing these answers will help you recruit the right candidates for your company.
You’re Getting Plenty of Applications Through Advertising on Job Boards
Recruiters often think the more applications the better and the more chance of finding a programmer you’d like to hire. This is not always the case and is a common developer hiring myth.
You may advertise on a job board and get hundreds of unsuitable applications. If this is the case, you should look to advertise on other sites.
Your goal is to hire great developers, so application volume is not important. Ensure you post adverts on sites that developers actually visit and target the advert to the types of programmers you’re looking to hire. If you don’t do this, you will be wasting valuable time.