In the past year, a lot has happened with the pandemic engulfing our day-to-day life and bringing in some tremendous changes to our work styles and safety concerns. One of the fascinating and predominant trends has been the positive shift towards work-from-home (WFH) environments.
More and more companies are incentivizing the WFH mode of work and have further refined their WFH policies. Physical meetings are replaced with Zoom calls and team conferences. A Gartner report says that about 88% of organizations worldwide switched to the WFH mode and made it mandatory for their employees to work from home as the result of the pandemic. And about 77% of remote employees say that they are more productive when working from home.
So you can expect the trend to stay, and companies are sure to keep looking for remote developers. As you can see, remote hiring developers directly is still not as refined as the traditional hiring process, and knowing a few tips and proven methods can help you hire the best developers for your company.
But at first, let’s discuss why (for what roles and tasks) companies need developers. This will have a direct impact on the hiring model and place where to look for the best project fit.
Why Companies Hire Developers?
To take ownership of your technical components
The rarest, but at the same time, the most important tech jobs in a company are CTOs, lead architect, or lead engineers. People in these positions are core team players that drive the whole product development process. They need to have an adequate level of expertise that allows for better technical leadership and product development. You could scout for such talents via trusted referrals, recommendations, or industry experts you know personally.
Developing your core product
Developers who will be involved in your core product development should also be high-skilled, reliable, and what’s really important – approachable. That’s why the best situation is when such a team is hired in-house. To find your potential candidates can post your job openings on portals like Angel.co and invite applications to help fill these responsibilities.
Temporary work for a fixed duration
You may have a need to augment your tech resources to support your core development team for a fixed long term or short term duration. For instance, when your application goes into production, you may need help with end to end testing. Or if you want to get rid of your technical debt. For this kind of situation, a standard outsourcing model is the most relevant option, and tech marketplaces like YouTeam can be the easiest option for fast hiring.
Small development tasks
You can hire freelancers to help execute certain one-off tasks like web designing, graphics development, porting applications, and so on. Hiring a full-time resource for tasks that need to be executed rarely can be expensive, and hiring freelancers helps you get expert help under flexible and affordable pricing. Sites like Upwork give you access to verified profiles of experts who can be hired for short term tasks.
The Steps To Hiring Web Developers
Step 1: Screen The Profiles
When you post a job on any freelancing sites or remote hiring job portals, you will receive many applications. The first step in hiring is to screen all the resumes you receive and filter out the most suitable candidates for the job. The candidate profile or CV is the first introduction you receive from them.
The best way to screen the potential candidates is to be clear on the technical stack and skills you need. Look for these skill markers in their resume and filter out those that don’t fit your job profile.
The other nontechnical filtres you can use include :
- The content structure of the resume
- Any job gaps left unexplained
- The previous experience details including the duration of stay in each of their last companies.
- The candidate’s time zone
- See if this information provided by the candidate matches your requirements.
Step 2: In-Person Interviews
This is an essential part of the recruitment process that lets you get a better picture of the candidates’ communication skills as it is crucial for smooth remote working. You have to make sure there are no language barriers and establish a good understanding among your team and the remote hire.
For instance, to hire Polish programmers, you need to make sure they have the necessary language skills and converse well in English even though English may not be their first language.
Step 3: Skills Assessment
The next step is to ensure the candidate can perform to the job’s requirement by evaluating their technical skills. This can be done via online tests, technical interviews, soft skills assessment, and qualification verification.
Technical Interview
You can keep several rounds of online technical interviews either as one-on-one interviews or as a panel of interviews required for the position.
Interviews can be grouped into several rounds to evaluate the candidate’s technical competency and more. Here is a guide that can help you conduct better developer interviews.
Skills Verification
To help assess a candidate’s expertise and eligibility for the job, use online test portals and code assessment tests. Some sites you could check out are:
You can customize the interview questions and test assessment to evaluate the skills required for the job and set a threshold to consider the candidate for the job.
Conclusion
The world may slowly reel back to pre-covid times, but you can expect some lasting effects on the workforce, including the increasing preference towards remote working models. Start early and make the best use of online resources and job portals to refine your remote hiring process and get easy access to top talents from across the world.