Hiring a coder or web developer can be an overwhelming process, especially if you yourself have not had much experience in the field. If you are looking to bring in a developer to work with your company, you want to make sure you’re getting someone qualified, capable and talented. Here is how you can make sure to hire the best web developer.
Don’t Look At Skills Alone
It’s important to remember when hiring for any job, that people are more than their resume and you need to consider more than just skills and experience when it comes to deciding if somebody is going to be the right fit for the role. This is something you should be trying to gauge during the job interview stage.
It is crucial that the developer you hire, as well as talent, has a work and communication style that will match the rest of your company. If you hire somebody who clashes with the rest of your team, then it could affect the productivity of other employees, the atmosphere of the workplace and the integrity of the work they complete. Consider the culture of your workplace. Is it a relaxed, social workplace where employees regular interact? Is it important that you hire someone who is keen to socialise with other employees? Will you be in and out of the office? Do you need someone who will contact you regularly with updates?
In the tech industry, certain skills quickly become outdated and obsolete which means that the attitude of a developer is just as important as their prior experience. You need to hire a developer that is open to learning and someone who has the drive to gain more knowledge and work in a team. This is why it is particularly important to meet in person when it comes to finding the right web developer for your company.
Research Candidates And Basic Development Concepts
When it comes to the hiring process, try and research every aspect of the candidates you are looking at. LinkedIn and social media profiles are great resources for doing this. By doing some background research, you can gain a better picture of what their career progression has looked like so far, what the clients they have worked for are like if there are any reviews or testimonials about their work and the various qualifications that they might have. It is useful to see the previous companies they might have worked for to get an idea of the level of work they might have done. It is also helpful to see examples of their previous work, should they have an online portfolio available, and be able to judge the quality of their own website.
It is also worth doing a little bit of research into what is required of a web developer if you have limited tech knowledge. Read some materials so that you are familiar with the terms used and the jargon developers might use. Part of hiring the best person for the role is knowing what questions to ask and you only know what are the best questions if you understand the domain. If you have very limited knowledge, ensure that another member of your team who understands more about basics of web development is also available to interview candidates.
Check Out Slack Channels
If you’re looking to hire a developer, it’s a good idea to stay connected with the online development community. One of the ways you can do this is by using Slack. Slack is a software that is used as an internal messaging and collaboration tool. It works with channels, where different teams or companies can create a single place for all messaging, sharing of files and tools. Freelance developers often belong to many different channels and some of these are open to the public. This means that by joining a few different channels, you can find different developers in the community and see how they interact with other clients, employers or colleagues. Joining these relevant communities gives you the opportunity to see how different developers might fit in with your company and the kind of values or work ethic they might have. Slack channels also provide you with the information you might need to do some further research, such as their name, current and past employers and email address.
Have A Trial Period
Sometimes when it comes to developers, it’s best to have the mentality of ‘try before you buy’ so you can properly gauge if they skill required to do the work needed. Although you may think you have found the ideal candidate, it’s is worth giving your candidate a small project to test out how they work. By doing this, you can have the opportunity to see how that person works and you can also give them a more in-depth idea of the project. It is important to keep in kind that just because someone appears to be an experienced developer who has worked on a lot of jobs, depending what is you need to be done, they may not be quite the right fit for the position. A trial period allows you to see how communicative they are, how much initiative they have and the way they problem-solve. If you are not tech-savvy yourself, make sure you have someone from your team who is checking in the with the candidate and verifying their capabilities. Another option is to use testing interfaces, such as Codility, to test candidates, particularly if you have a large volume of interviewees.
Know What To Offer
As is the case with many jobs, it is not necessarily the financial reward that attracts people to a particular type of work. If you have a find an ideal candidate and want to secure them for your company, consider what you could offer that candidate that would make your company more appealing than other offers they might have. They are most likely to be attracted to interesting, compelling work or potentially the ability to work autonomously or with flexible hours.
Consider Training Someone From Your Company
If you do not need a web developer urgently and someone from your company already has some of the basic tech skills and works well with the rest of your team, it could be beneficial to your company to offer professional development to them and train them up with further skills. For example, allowing them to undertake an online course in programming or web-based technologies, could help your company in the long run and save you going through an arduous, and potentially fruitless, hiring process.
