How do you recruit a good developer?

Recruiting a developer in the digital age is a real challenge.

A study by StackOverFlow revealed in 2019 that 95% of developers were already in post. So there's a lot of demand from companies and not many developers available.

If you don't intend to entrust this (almost impossible) mission to a recruitment agency, how can you put all the chances on your side to hire a good developer quickly?

Here are the 6 tips you need to apply to recruit talent, overcome the difficulties of recruiting in tech and convince that talent to join your team!

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Tip 1: Work on your employer brand

Taking care of your employer brand is essential when you're recruiting, whatever the profile you're looking for.

It allows you to express your company's personality: its values, expertise, culture and mission. So it's important that it's well thought-out and offers an accurate reflection, so that candidates can get to know you and want to apply for a job with you.

Why is this important? Candidates are increasingly demanding when it comes to their professional lives: a good salary or a well-known company are no longer sufficient criteria. When considering a new job, certain criteria are becoming increasingly important, such as

• Respect for work-life balance,
• the atmosphere on the premises
• the company's values,
• and fulfilling projects.

💡 Tip: don't fall into the trap of trying to please everyone. Be honest, transparent, assume your positions and you'll have a great chance of attracting the attention of developers who share the same values as you, and who will be able to flourish in your company.

Discover our top tips for developing your employer brand effectively!

Tip 2: Define your needs

To recruit the right developer, it's essential that your needs are clearly defined beforehand: project, responsibilities, skills and technical languages used.

It's the need that determines the type of profile you need to recruit. If your technical knowledge is limited, don't hesitate to consult the CTO or a developer to find out exactly what the project needs:

• the programming languages used (JavaScript, Php, Python, C++, Shell, etc.),
• the type of database (SQL or noSQL),
• the front-end (Angular, JQuery, React, etc.) and back-end (Symfony, Laravel, Django, etc.) frameworks.

💡 Do you need a totally versatile profile? You'll need to specify that you're looking for a full stack developer.

Don't hesitate to do the exercise of writing a job profile of your ideal candidate to get your ideas straight.

Tip 3: Run a fast, smooth recruitment process

There's no denying that an efficient recruitment process maximises your chances of being chosen by a candidate, especially if they have a choice.

So make sure you calibrate your processes upstream so that, once the applications have been received, all the stages can be completed quickly, with :

• technical tests ready for candidates to take,
• interview slots reserved in the diaries of the employees concerned,
• all the qualities of the ideal profile in mind.

👉 As long as your needs are well defined beforehand and these elements are respected, the rest of the process should go quickly.

While there are no rules set in stone, it is estimated that a process of 2 weeks between the first contact and the hiring proposal is a fast and efficient process.

To help you, don't hesitate to use applicant tracking software.

Beetween, for example, is a highly intuitive, easy-to-use recruitment software package that makes it easy to manage your applications by digitising all your recruitment tasks. Multi-posting of your vacancies on over 150 partner job boards , automatic generation of employment contracts, creation of a career site in your image, automatic sorting of CVs and applications... your entire recruitment process is streamlined and you save precious time!

Tip 4: Take care with the job advert

The job advert is the tip of the iceberg, the one that showcases your company and the position to be filled. You need to take particular care with it, to make the best developers want to apply.

But first of all, how do you stand out from the myriad of job offers flooding the market? How can you ensure that a candidate clicks on your ad rather than another?

Start by taking care with the elements that appear on the results page:

• the title must be precise (for example, don't say " Developer", but "DevOps Engineer" or "Expert PHP Developer"),
• the location of the premises or whether the job can be done on a full remote basis (full-time telecommuting),
• the date- the more recent the advert, the more likely applicants are to click through. If the advert is too old, it's doubtful whether it's still relevant.

On the Welcome to the jungle site, you can highlight the technologies used in the company, which are of interest to developers:

Have you managed to attract the attention of potential candidates who have clicked on your ad? Perfect, now you need to get them to read the ad and apply.

A good job advert should :

• be short, because according to WeLoveDevs.com, the average reading time for ads that convert is 2 minutes and 30 seconds;
• be personalised and transparent about your expectations and values;
• describe the project, the tasks and the responsibilities of the position;
• provide information on the frameworks and languages used;
• provide background information (working methods, team size, whether or not you work from home, etc.);
• structure the information using bullet points and words in bold.

Tip 5: Evaluate your profile and skills

Assessing a developer's profile by reference to their qualifications? Forget the old French reflex when hiring a developer. This is a field that is particularly well-supplied with talented self-taught profiles, and it would be a shame to ignore it out of an over-emphasis on higher education.

So how do you assess a developer? We recommend that you pay attention to :

• mastery of the necessary computer languages
• the ability to learn and adapt, because everything evolves regularly and you need to be able to adapt to frequent changes,
• previous projects, by looking at their github portfolio or the opinions of their freelance clients,
• essential qualities such as curiosity, a passion for code, an open mind and the ability to work as part of a team.

👉 You should also be aware that it is becoming increasingly common not to filter candidates on the basis of their mastery of a particular language, but rather to assess their ability to solve problems in a specific language.rather to assess their ability to solve a specific problem, regardless of the languages or methods used. Technical mastery is all well and good, but the spirit of analysis, exploration and tenacity are sometimes far more valuable assets.

That's exactly what CodinGame is all about, a platform that helps companies recruit the right developers by creating programming challenges tailored to the position to be filled, which they can set up in just a few minutes.

More than just technical tests, these concrete code exercises put candidates in a real-life situation to validate not only that they have mastered a specicific computer language, but also to assess their reasoning, speed and the way in which they mobilise their resources to solve the given problem.

A comparative score lets you know where a developer stands in relation to all those who have carried out the test, so you can make the best decision.

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Tip no. 6: Post your vacancy on developer recruitment platforms

While it's perfectly possible to use LinkedIn when you want to recruit a web developer, it's nevertheless worth turning to specialist developer job boards to post your job advert.

Here are a few examples:

• WeLoveDevs.com,
• Skill Value,
• PHP France.

Better adapted to the needs and expectations of developers, they generally attract the best profiles who feel more confident and better understood. For example, it is possible to remain anonymous and apply for jobs discreetly when you are in post.