Ask HN: Clever Recruiting Techniques?
For me, the biggest surprise about running a startup has been how difficult it is to recruit top-notch engineers. It is shockingly, bewilderingly, impossibly difficult to find qualified web developers. Granted, my notion of "qualified" is discriminating, but it's been surprisingly difficult nonetheless.
I've tried all the traditional channels for finding developers: job boards, networking events, and my own personal network. It's time to get more creative. I'd love to hear about any clever techniques or tactics others have used to identify promising web developer candidates.
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and then work down the list looking for languages and frameworks of interest.
Still, it's certainly a reasonable initial source of people, and I would imagine you'll find that a lot of the "good" programmers who aren't in this list are only a couple of real-life connections away, at most.
So far, my very best way to recruit was through internship. The downside is that it will take long months to get acceptable engineers, then they won't stay with you for more than a year or two once they're competent.
This is utter nonsense. There are plenty of people who aren't necessarily interested in working for Google or Microsoft. Neither does working for a startup mean little pay and neither benefits nor career prospects (assuming that's what you meant by 'carrier perspective')
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/sep/22/timetric-fin...
We're obviously delighted, and it wasn't easy, but it can be done. It's more than purely a sales job, particularly if you're trying to bring in someone really good.
We're six full time right now, by the way.
Only true if you keep paying them like juniors and don't advance their career appropriately to their personal/professional development.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...
I didn't do great in the competition (67th place or so), but I suppose the main thing was to attract people who actually enjoy programming (and challenges).
A was also on an interview for Propellerhead (http://www.propellerheads.se/) in 2003 after they had a (kind of hard) programming quiz that went viral. Didn't get that gig though.
If you want me, let me show you what I have done - I don't want to compete in a programming contest where the grand prize is a poorly paid job, where you are expected to work unpaid overtime and be subservient. I know my worth, and is pretty happy running my own startup business defining my own terms as I go along.
I looked at a job at klarna but the thought of spending some time re-sharpening my skills at Erlang and then spending some days doing their code challenge unpaid - not so interested. I'd rather do something else and get my moneys worth for my time. Although I'm kind of tempted for a job where I get a chance to work face-to-face with some more senior people to learn from them.
Some time though I might want to take a job, my plan to be able to skip all these silly programming contests is to have some open source projects or contributions to show. I have a couple of project that I wish I had been able to open-source, but I think that I will go by the route of contributing to some existing project. I feel that recruiting by looking at open source is a very good thing, where the interests of both employer and employee are upheld.
It's also good to start out with consultancy before actually hiring someone to screen and to set up expectations of level of delivery - consultants work harder and have a more professional attitude than a straight-up employee. Though I don't know if the transition from consultant to employee is that easy, I've certainly preferred to stay a consultant and seen no benefit in becoming an employee.
That is because consultants are getting paid by the hour and are often not in their home town so their option is 1) get paid more or 2) go to the hotel alone and watch TV. I always chose option 1 if I could.
In a company with vested employees who believe in the company, there will be no comparison between the employees and consultants in their dedication and professionalism.
When I got hired by Klarna I never had to do any programming. I had actual code out there in the wild that I could point to.
Getting to the interview stage at Klarna is easy. Getting an actual job offer is harder.
(Btw. If you don't like IQ tests then don't look for a job at Klarna...)
A friend who is a really smart guy got in touch with a recruiter from google during his last year at the university doing his PhD. At first it seemed interesting but when he saw how much time the recruiter expected him to put in for interviews and tests he wasn't so interested any more and continued his career in academia instead.
1) Hire folks who exhibit good problem-solving skills and possess a good attitude. These folks usually are easily trained and become productive in a short span of time. But you have to invest in your employees - through training, through remuneration, through building an open culture.
Good leaders work with the tools they have and the people they have - not set improbable standards. You would be surprised by what people are capable of if you support them, encourage them, train them and give them room to learn by making mistakes.
2) Nowadays i usually try to find good open source developers in my area, study their code, check out their blog listings, check out their mailing list responses - and then do my best to convince them to work with me. These folks are among the BEST.
3) In the past, i have conducted coding competitions in universities and collages - and have hired many of the student participants after interacting with them informally, talking to their friends and checking out their code.
4) I would also humbly suggest that Web development has such an enormous set of great tools, books, articles, tutorials etc, that any curious and persistent person can pick up the basics in a short span of time - given the right motivation.
Still,if noone knows about your ideal workplace, you're still stuck trying to differentiate your firm from hundreds of others vying for attention with all the same marketing-speak.
After exhausting agencies, linkedin, and adverts I was particularly frustrated by what I had seen and the quality of who we had interviewed.
So I asked the simple question, "Where do devs hangout?". And I'm not talking bars, I'm talking those who are busy actually doing stuff, especially if it's stuff they're working on in their own time (a passion for something).
And the answer to myself was in the community channels for a given tech. For the most part this was freenode IRC rooms, but sometimes it's Google Groups.
The important thing with approaching people through these channels is not to go in cold or piss them off. But as this should be an area which you know too (or your CTO does, or other devs you have does), then you should open the dialogue in their comfort zone.
Encourage use of the channels and just watch for a bit to see who is giving answers to other people... they're the ones who know what they're doing, and they're the influencers.
Once you know who they are, ask them if they're looking for work, where they're located (timezones help here, if you're in the UK go in early in the morning and you mostly have europeans, and if you're in the US go in late as you mostly have Americans). Even if they're not looking, they may very well know someone in the channel who is looking and they will recommend a good person.
Does this method work? Yes, for me it has done.
Using HN to hire is one example of this (and we found a terrific graduate who started today), and I did the same with the android-dev IRC channel to get a great Android dev. I've also done the same with hiring a great devops guy (another IRC channel).
Basically... if you can't find them, and if you aren't doing things like airbnb (great hiring pages that go viral), red gate (giving away ipads for good interview candidates), then spend your time and effort to go where they go.
I wouldn't call this clever. It's just very basic head-hunting. But frankly that's what you're doing. Stop expecting that the good guys are out there looking for you, they're busy doing stuff... the average guys are out there looking for you.
Join a professional developer organization... Plenty of Linux, iPhone, Android, .Net, etc. developer groups in most major tech hubs...
Diff from big-fat-cat company, startup has a big advantage that it's going to grow and employees can really feel it.
This is a good chance to cultivate ownership, loyalty, sense of belonging, etc.
Good luck :)