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Ask HN: Best way of recruiting developers?

9 points by aembleton ↗ HN
Over the next few months we need to double our development team, which will mean recruiting 15 new members. We've been struggling for months to recruit and now we need to increase this.

What is the best way to do this? The ideas that we have so far are to:

- Increase our presence in the local tech community by sponsoring and attending Meetups

- Go and talk at conferences

- Advertise on Stackoverflow

- Increase salaries

Any other suggestions?

20 comments

[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 52.9 ms ] thread
dozzie
Make your developers initiate talk with developers you want to recruit?

I would react totally different if a programmer invited me to a coffee, lunch, or a beer than I do with regular, tech-wise dumb recruiters.

checker659
Hire people from abroad? I'm from Nepal and would be thrilled to move to UK for a job.
aembleton
We're based in the UK and do hire from all around the EU. It's a good point though, if we were to start sponsoring visas then we might be able to get more good candidates.
floobyhoob
You should explain why you're struggling,exactly. There's every chance you're interviewing great developers but either your process or understanding of how to evaluate people is poor.

I know that is sacrilege.... every employer believes with utter certainty that they know exactly how to pick great people, but I think that's often incorrect and arrogant.... i.e. YOU might be the problem.

dagw
Which part of the process are you having problems with?

Aren't you getting any applicants at all? Are you getting applicants, but none that match your needs? Are you getting enough good applicants, but can't convince them to work for you? Different problems require different solutions.

aembleton
We're not getting enough good applicants.
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(comment deleted)
itamarst
How do you define good applicants? I.e. what is the lack you're seeing?
dagw
What are a few things you require for someone to be a "good applicant"
itamarst
If you offer a sane workweek, there's lots of developers who will be interested. Email me (itamar@codewithoutrules.com) if that applies to you.
tixocloud
Points 1 and 2 are great options. If you have the time, you can also host engineering-based events, talk about tech, etc.

Good developers are hard to find for the fact that there's a high probability that they are in great demand. Everyone's clamouring for their attention.

Also, for the applicants that you do get, are they fundamentally terrible at coding/problem-solving or do they just not know the tech stack you're using? If it's the latter, you might want to re-evaluate as good to great developers are capable of picking up languages easily. You just need to give them some room to ramp up.

mrfusion
Free stuff you can do:

Treat them with respect and dignity

Respond to them promptly

If you find someone you want to hire make the offer immediately.*

* I've had companies seemingly devastated that I took a different job in the three weeks they took to get back to me after the interview. True story!

cphollister
At this exact moment, how many developers do you have at each of the following stages of your recruiting process: __ - Leads (developers we know) / __ - Interested (in working with us) / __ - Interviewing (phone/onsite)
mooreds
Some other ideas:

- take folks with less experience and commit to training them (even bootcamp grads, depending on the position!)

- offer remote work options

- offer part time work

- hire contractors and try to woo them

- craigslist

- look at other benefits (leave, pto, etc). This is dependent on the market, so what are other companies in your area doing?

- recruit from places other companies aren't looking (outside the cs department, votech schools)

- offer a recruiting bonus to get the team engaged

- I have never implemented this, but if I was in your shoes, I'd try it: http://firstround.com/review/Mine-Your-Network-for-Early-Sta...

You haven't talked much about the sector/experience/tech, and of course that will affect what flexibility you have.