How to Hire the Best Developers and Engineers

Wondering what steps can be done to find and hire engineers or developers for your startup? Several tips depicted in this article could not have been more relevant!

For any startup, hiring the right staff is one of the essential components for project success. Those people generate incredible ideas, perform excellent work, and overall improve business processes within a project.

To hire the best developers for your startup, it is a must for you to deeply understand the project requirements, involving the technical stack. For instance, in case your startup is AI-related, you should take into account Python as the initial tech within the engineer’s competency. A good option is considering PHP if your target is to design an e-com store. If you’re planning to develop an app for both iOS and Android, you should hire a react native developer. We hope, the idea is clear for you, right?

Extremely talented developers and engineers are in high demand nowadays. It is a true challenge to find them. To simplify the task for you, we have enriched this article with several effective strategies for hiring the best developers and engineers. So, let’s start!

Address Your Professional Circles for a Recommendation

If you are perfect at networking and, thus, have a rich base of contacts, it is often a great idea to ask those people for a referral. The point is developers and engineering specialists change jobs every 2-3 years and composing a team of professionals whom you know and whose experience and skills are doubtless is considered a good option. Below is a strategy you may follow:

  • Go through LinkedIn or Facebook and explore profiles of your acquaintances. Find developers and engineers in their “friends” line and make a list of the specialists you got interested in;
  • Invite them to lunch to talk about your startup (be ready to make the most attractive and bright presentation of your startup to motivate them for a meeting);
  • If the answer is “I’m ready to meet with you” it means that a person finds your project exciting and you will hire them for your startup.

The above-mentioned scheme may be implemented to everyone from your list. This doesn’t mean that you succeed from the very first trial but you should keep your eyes on the prize, ok?

Practice Online Hiring Platforms

If you consider the opportunity to hire the engineering contractors, it would be ideal to try online hiring platforms such as Engre, Upwork, YouTeam, or TopTal. A few words about each of them:

  • Check out the power of the search algorithms of the Engre marketplace. As a rule, it takes them only a few days to explore a list of the best developers and engineers that can start in the short term. Among the marketplace’s advantages, they handle all the contract and financial issues. Moreover, it is free for customers to receive a list of potential candidates and conduct primary interviews with them. Finally, Engre helps small businesses to cut costs while recruiting talents;
  • Most likely, you are already familiar with such a hiring platform as Upwork. You can use that to hire engineering contractors located in the US, Australia, or Europe. All you should do is post your project description with the skills required from the candidates. Then, Upwork matches the description against the profiles of contractors who possess identical skills and provides you with a list of the most suitable candidates;
  • YouTeam marketplace functions similar to Upwork, i.e. customers browse profiles of the best developers and engineers and interview them. Due to a strict vetting procedure, YouTeam guarantees that the most reliable professionals are represented in the marketplace. As they don’t cooperate with freelancers but only with specialists from reputable service companies, this enables them to minimize risks that can take place when hiring freelancers;
  • TopTal is considered as a unique network of experienced developers and engineers who are admitted to placing their job profiles as far as they pass through a fastidious vetting procedure.

How About Cold Outreach at Career Platforms?

Cold outreach is defined as the process of texting developers online. It is great when you don’t implement the traditional LinkedIn approach, but communicate with engineers in places where they spend time. For instance, this could be performed on GitHub or Hacker News. However, here comes the challenge for your message to stand out of the pack as engineers there receive a huge amount of mails with job proposals. So, pick up all your creativity and prepare an offer they couldn’t refuse. Several tips on cold outreach specifics can be checked here.

Ask Recruiters for Support

If you are the owner of a startup, most likely you devote all the time to the things (searching for places where and how to promote your solution) that have nothing in common with candidate search. Naturally, you should accentuate more significant tasks. Here, recruiters may become your magic wand. They do have more time to search than you possess.

You may optimize the process of candidate search from your side. Just prepare detailed info on the required qualifications and experience of an ideal candidate as you see it. The recruiter will be extremely motivated to make you satisfied with the candidate as you rid them of the irritation connected with wasting time while searching for some mythical engineering creature.

Build your reputation

Though your startup is currently on the stage of development, make efforts to build a perfect reputation with a strong culture. This will help you hire great talent. The better your reputation, the more top specialists will seek you out.

Ryan Kh
 

Ryan Kahn, known as a career coach and television personality. Ryan Kahn is founder of The Hired Group, author of Hired!