Tech Recruiting Tips: Having Trouble Hiring Your Dream Developer? Create Your Own!

February 28, 2013

Tech Recruiting Tips: Having Trouble Hiring Your Dream Developer? Create Your Own! Positions can be difficult to fill for a variety of reasons.

Perhaps there is a very specific, specialized skill set that a candidate must possess. Or maybe the skills aren’t that special, but the market is simply saturated with demand for this type of candidate, giving them the opportunity to choose any position they desire. Either way, if you have a position that needs to be filled and has been open for too long, you may need to re-assess the requirements.
This can be particularly true if it is a job opening that requires very specific skills or experience. Be sure to objectively review which qualifications are absolute must-haves. You may find that hiring a candidate who may be missing one skill or requirement can more than make up for it with an ambitious attitude and cultural fit. He or she may end up being an excellent hire, perhaps even more so than a candidate who holds each specific requirement.
As a hiring manager it is important to realistically note what you need this employee to do for you. It is possible that if one or more “nice to have” requirements are missing, you can teach and train this person to pick up the missing skill?

In Tech Recruiting, the Ideal Candidate May Not Exist

Especially when hiring for engineering or technical roles, you may find it extremely difficult to find a 100% qualified candidate. These types of positions are typically double whammies in that they require a specific skill and demand is incredibly high, allowing candidates to be extremely picky in changing companies. Many companies have run into this problem, but a few are actively formulating some very interesting and innovative solutions.

Why Chase After the Developer of Your Dreams When You Can Create Your Own?

For example, LivingSocial partnered with JumpstartLab in order to create Hungry Academy, a 5-month program to train engineers on a specific technology: Ruby on Rails. After three months of the academy, LivingSocial asks for an 18-month commitment to join their engineering team.
Genius!

I would advise tech companies to take a page out of LivingSocial’s book and think of other creative ways to add training to their talent acquisition strategy. Creating your own academy may be a bit extreme, but perhaps you could start by having more lenient requirements and assigning junior employees a senior-level mentor. Or maybe your company could implement a training/ramp up period for new employees. The potential is endless, and certainly worth thinking about. After all, demand for top tech talent isn’t dying down any time soon, and those unanswered postings and empty positions certainly aren’t doing you any good.

What tech recruiting tips do you have for hiring and/or developing high-demand tech talent? Do you think establishing a training program is an effective solution?

Recruiting Lead - Software

<strong>Katy Smigowski</strong> is the Recruiting Lead-Software at <a href="https://www.fitbit.com/">Fitbit</a>, where she is directly managing sourcing team, recruiting process and recruiting strategy dedicated to driving software hiring in our Boston office. Prior to Fitbit, she was a Talent Specialist at OpenView responsible for recruiting initiatives for both the firm and its portfolio companies.