Whether your company is starting out, looking to expand, needing to replace talent, or adding staff to fill in niche skills; finding good talent is difficult and increasingly challenging. Good talent, especially for niche programming skills, are like precious gems: they are hard to find, everyone wants them, and those that have them want even more of them.
Recruiting top talent is a delicate process. You want to make sure you are attracting and selecting the best candidates. Additionally, for top talent, the selection process is a two-way street, in that they may have many options and they are equally evaluating you during the recruitment, interview, and selection. You may need to sell people on the character and culture of your company. To recruit top talent, you need to stand out and give them good reasons to want to join your team.
1. Think About What Skills and Work You Need Done
If you are looking to fit new talent into a pre-existing team, carefully examine the team to see what skills are missing or what needs improving. You will not draw talent by being vague about what you need or being unclear about the requirements and expectations. Also, you do not want to go through the process and then realize that although you hired an excellent candidate, they do not fill the needs you had.
If you are a software developer, this task will be easier in that you will understand more about what you need. However, if you are a human resources manager, this investigation will be more challenging, and much more necessary. You should ask the team to compare the candidate's skills against their needs.
2. Use the Interview to Separate the Great from the Good
When you are searching for top talent, you want people with as many soft skills as hard technical skills. You can use the interview to separate the best candidates from the rest.
Look for these features:
Understands the industry as a whole- Understands the business's goals
- Understands deadlines
- Can clearly communicate technical details
- Balances practical and innovative approaches
- Readily admits and owns up to mistakes
- Willing to work through stressful situations
These characteristics will separate the great from the good. In fact, you may want to add to this list with your own company’s particular needs.
3. Look for Talent, but Culture is Important Too
Product planning, design, and development are complex and long-term investments. In order to handle the complex software development projects of today, high-performing teams are necessary to work together and bring the software to market. Therefore, you will need to make sure that your potential talent has the soft-skills required to fit into a team. This may also mean you look for qualitative elements that help you determine whether this candidate will match your company culture, which will be key for teamwork.
Related Content: How to Build a Quality Software Development Team
4. Take Time to Connect with your Candidates
As you carry out the recruitment process, do remember you want to take time to attract and connect with top talent. Your candidates will want to ask questions to learn whether your company and team are the right fit for them too. Make the interview day an opportunity to connect as colleagues. Casual time, such as a meal together, might better replicate the informal interactions that happen around the office and allow both you and the candidate to determine whether they are interpersonal and cultural fit.
Recruiting the best software development professionals takes skill, effort and quality time – factors that many businesses don’t have. Utilizing their expertise and experience, Bydrec can recruit and shortlist the highest quality software developers for you, quickly and efficiently. This means less time to hire for your company and a more excellent selection of high-quality candidates to choose from.
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