It’s challenging to hire an IT developer for your mobile app, game, or stealth-mode project, particularly when you are looking for a competent professional with an excellent track record. According to the BLS, employment of web developers (and digital designers) is anticipated to grow 13% from 2020 to 2030, which is more rapid than the average for all professions. As a result, there’s tough competition to get the top talent within your ranks.
It’s important to remember that effective interviewing and hiring of IT developers is as much of an art as it’s a science. Yet, there are approaches and methodologies that can help you evaluate a developer’s skills and abilities and find one suitable for your current and future requirements. When used collectively, these methods facilitate a highly effective hiring process with a proven track record of success. This post is all about helping you hire 100 IT developers fast and in the most efficient way.
Effective Modes of Recruitment
Whether you plan to hire 100 IT developers for a long-term or short-term project, either locally or globally, you shouldn’t compromise on the quality of talent you want to work with. To help you select some of the top-ranked professionals in terms of skills and industry experience, we bring you the top seven modes of recruitment that are known to be extremely effective and can help you find the talent you need and deserve.
1. Get Referrals
According to research by Jobvite, though just 7% of job applicants come from referrals, this seemingly small number makes up 40% of hires. Thus, it’s no surprise that many organizations depend on employee referrals as their top-rated source for hiring.
The Jobvite research also found that employees who stay for 3+ years stand at more than three times (47%) for referrals compared to employees hired via job boards (14%). As employers are experiencing higher turnovers than usual in the post-pandemic era due to new employee expectations and the accessibility of hybrid arrangements, referrals are becoming even more precious. To recruit 100 IT developers, you too can rely on referrals from your existing employees.
Some companies have a referral program as part of a deliberate recruitment strategy, where they reward their employees for referring suitably qualified candidates from their networks. The companies offer them cash or prize incentives in case their referred candidates are hired and continue working for a specified period. This period could be anywhere from three to six months or even more. Several organisations offer their employees a part of the bonus on the day their referred candidate is hired, followed by an additional payment made to their account at the end of their referred candidate’s probationary period. If you already have such a program, you can make the most of it to hire 100 IT developers.
If you don’t have an employee referral program yet and can’t start it right away, the next best thing you can do is ask your employees, business partners, associates, family, friends, or anyone else in your network for referrals.
A significant advantage of this mode of hiring is establishing direct contact with the developers. Since the individual who refers you to the developers may have hired these professionals before and can vouch for them, you will have better chances of finding some of the top developers. Additionally, the developers may trust you more when someone from their network refers their name to you and are more likely to work with you even when they have other job offers.
2. Use LinkedIn
Did you know 87% of recruiters regularly use LinkedIn? With over 58 million companies listed on LinkedIn and 50 million people searching for jobs on the platform every week, it’s a gold mine waiting to be explored to find suitable talent. Your LinkedIn Page can act as your chief source of attracting prospective new employees when hiring 100 IT developers.
According to 81% of talent professionals, virtual recruiting will outlive COVID-19. If you can’t personally screen prospective new hires for the post of IT developers, relying on tools like LinkedIn will become even more important.
One of the easiest ways to find and hire 100 IT developers is by asking for referrals from your LinkedIn network. You should also focus on building your company page and profile. Ideally, your recruiting profile should have a friendly profile image, an interesting headline, and a summary showcasing your professional story, accomplishments, business goals, company culture, and prospective job seeker’s expectations in the best possible light.
You can also leverage LinkedIn Pulse, LinkedIn’s publishing platform, using the news aggregation feed to share relevant content with your network. By publishing insightful and engaging content, either original or curated, you can set yourself up as a thought leader in your niche. You can also expand your reach via engaging status updates about your company’s activities, which will help attract talented IT developers. Sponsored updates and paid ads are other effective ways of attracting relevant candidates.
With LinkedIn’s paid services, you can locate passive candidates, thus enjoying access to a wider talent pool that can help you build a candidate pipeline. For instance, if you have a premium account, you can use advanced search and filter options to find relevant candidates fast and nurture relationships with top talents easily.
Participating in group discussions to boost your brand’s visibility among IT developers and using LinkedIn plug-ins like Hootsuite, TweetDeck, Klout, Buffer, and BullHorn Reach to get help in recruiting the right professionals are other ways to speed up your recruitment process. You may even try organising contests like a hackathon and using sponsored updates to expand your network and attract IT professionals positioned nearby.
3. Leverage Other Social Media Platforms
Social recruiting has become an integral part of attracting and hiring the best candidates. You too can leverage other social media platforms through employer branding and communicating your organisation’s value proposition to find the best-fit IT developers.
Apart from LinkedIn, the other two significant social media platforms to focus upon for your recruitment process are Facebook and Twitter. You can search for industry-specific networks or groups within a broader network like software developers or IT developers to engage appropriate people and check if they are looking for a job change or searching for positions similar to what you want to offer.
You can use search functions and keywords on Facebook and hashtags on Twitter to find relevant conversations and engage in them. This can give you the ideal platform to share employee stories, talk about customer feedback, and advocate your company culture to entice the right talent. Regular participation in such groups and networks will also boost your online visibility, thus making it easier for people looking for IT developer jobs to find you.
For example, if you are familiar with Facebook’s extensive filters, you can filter your search results for “IT developers” by date, location, post type, name of the group, or the source (i.e., someone in a group you follow, in your network, or public). You can search for a specific term or keyword across all touchpoints or particularly in people, groups, events, pages, or posts. Given below is an example of a search for the term “Javascript developer” in people whose location is Bangalore, India.
As there are thousands of developer communities on Facebook, you can search for the ones where developers browse to find job opportunities or share their knowledge to become a member. Once you are a member, you can post your job ad to see who responds with “PM sent” or “interested.” You can even search for promising candidates based on their posts in the groups, as you might end up locating some true gems there.
For Twitter, you can leverage the platform’s advanced search, use tags to attract job seekers (like #RubyonRailsJobs, #pythondeveloperjobs, etc.), and explore Twitter Topics feature to find top-performing tweets by senior-level developers.
You can also conduct searches with conference-specific hashtags, such as #DevOpsBerlin 2021, or use general hashtags like #DevOpsMadrid, #DevOpsDays, etc., to find past or upcoming attendees or those interested in the field with whom you can network to source willing candidates.
4. Partner with an IT Staffing Company
If you want to skip browsing multiple job boards and social media platforms, writing and tweaking job descriptions, avoiding unappreciated follow-ups and unanswered calls, and start interviewing IT developers right away, partnering with an IT staffing company is just what you need.
Whether you are looking for in-office or remote hiring, a reputed and reliable IT staffing company can make the entire process of finding the best IT developers around the world faster and easier than ever. When you work with such a company, you will get
- Direct access to qualified candidates right away
- Experienced developers vetted for quality
- New or updated list of eligible candidates frequently
When you work with an IT staffing company, you will have a diverse talent pool to choose from. Be it front-end, full-stack, back-end, or DevOps professionals, you will get them all and even more. From entry-level professionals to mid-level and senior developers, the company will be able to find the right match for your needs and help you fill the positions speedily.
Finding and hiring IT developers on your own may sound easy and cost-effective, but when you factor in browsing through thousands of CVs, short-listing candidates based on their experiences and skills, planning tests to examine their skills, and running thorough background checks, it could seem pretty overwhelming. And when you add the tough fight to attract the top talent to this mix, it could be exasperating. By hiring an IT staffing company, you will no longer need to fight for top tech talent. Instead, you can focus on your other core business matters while the staffing company offers you immediate access to verified, talented developers open to remote or permanent roles today.
5. Search Freelance Platforms
If you are looking to hire freelance IT developers, freelance platforms can offer you an easy and fast way to recruit suitable candidates. If you choose bidding websites like Freelancer, Upwork, or Guru, you will need to post your job requirement along with your budget. Then, freelance developers will place their bids on it to win the project. You can check the portfolio and ratings of these freelancers and browse their past projects and client feedback to ensure the ones you are hiring are qualified to work on your project.
If you are looking to hire 100 IT developers for short-term projects, order-based freelance platforms like Fiverr can help. Though they work similar to bidding websites, these marketplaces are designed for smaller projects, where freelance IT (and other) professionals (both creative and technical) showcase their extremely specific skill-sets as ‘services’ and try to bag one-off job orders to earn money.
You will need to go to vetted talent platforms like Arc.dev, Toptal, and Flexiple, among others, to find and hire top freelance developers. These platforms have stringent screening processes and tests before allowing the tech talent inside their network. As a result, you will get access to the very cream of tech talent here. The goal of these vetted talent platforms is to create a community of top-quality and experienced freelance developers, who are always ready to work toward the client’s project success. For clients like you, this means getting to work with highly curated and vetted talent, which saves precious time and effort that would have otherwise been invested in conducting extensive screening to find suitable candidates on their own.
6. Participate in Developer Meetups and Conferences
Web developer meetups, events, and conferences are the ideal ways to find developers near you. Whether you are looking for experienced professionals or freshers, these events’ sharing, learning, networking, and collaborating environment give you the perfect backdrop to conduct your search for IT developers.
Web development conferences typically last between a day and a week and offer an opportunity to learn from industry experts. The best ones of the lot focus on a theme and are held recurrently as they are in demand. They can also happen online or in a hybrid format to attract a broader audience.
Web development meetups usually let web developers and industry professionals come together to talk about their topics of interest, such as website applications, on-demand mobile apps, or security best practices. These are smaller meetings that offer web developers the chance to have comprehensive conversations. Unlike bigger conferences, these meetups are gatherings that are a lot more intimate.
Web development events can include hands-on learning activities, workshops, mentoring sessions, interactive presentations, and even research presentations. Developers usually attend all such conferences, meetups, and events, because they get to learn a lot, share their stories and listen to others’ views, network with peers and industry leaders, and create collaborating opportunities. Attending such events will let you access this vast talent pool and fast-track your hiring process.
To find 100 IT developers, you can begin by searching online for regular tech meetups, developer events, or annual developer conferences in your region. Apart from physical events, you should also look for online and hybrid events. If you need developers with specific skills or experts in particular tech stacks and programming languages, you should keep the parameters in mind and use them in your search terms for targeted search with better results.
Once you have short-listed a few events, conferences, or meetups, you can attend them to connect with developers in your region who are either looking for work or have someone in their network who is.
7. Be an Active User on Developer Forums and Communities
This is another great strategy to use. By getting involved in software developer communities and forums and being an active user, you may find the IT developers you need or come across someone who can recommend them to you.
You can set your eyes on Stack Overflow, which is regarded as the largest community for software developers. Ideally, you should try to find some active members of Stack Overflow, peruse their profiles, and reach out to see if they are interested in working for you or can refer anyone.
GitHub is another place you should take a closer look at. This repository for developers to store code and collaborate could let you look at your prospective candidate’s past projects and decide for yourself if they matched the desired standard.
Websites featuring coding challenges like HackerRank, CodeChef, CodinGame, Topcoder, and Codewars, among others, can also be good for finding IT developers. The blogs, forums, and leaderboards of these websites will be particularly helpful for you.
With your active participation in the forums and communities and browsing through the blog posts, you can short-list prospects’ profiles and set up interviews with those who pass your initial screening. However, since different developer communities and forums have their own sets of rules, you will need to engage your target audience first before trying to recruit, provided that’s not against their rules. This makes it important to read the fine print and check if the forums or communities you are targeting allow reaching out to their users with the aim of recruiting them.
Final Words
Hiring 100 IT developers may seem overwhelming at first. However, if you plan well and have a structured approach where you use some or all of the modes mentioned above to access an extensive talent pool, finding the right fit would no longer be an uphill task. Will you use any other method to hire 100 IT developers fast? Let us know.
Go ahead and start recruiting the top talents to fill 100 IT developer posts in your organisation. Don’t forget to let us know how it went.
This article was written by Sonali