Mohammad Forouzani

How to hire the best developers

Posted on 18. Jun, 2011 by forouzani in Business, Management, Web Development

There seems to be some misconception going around – specially in the startup community – that to hire the best talent, you should make the hiring process as grueling as possible for the candidates. This is actually completely opposite to common sense – only those desperate for a job (i.e. NOT the best talent) are going to go through your entire grueling hiring process.

Here are the most common mistakes I have seen companies make:

• Drawn out interview process – a 7 stage interview process is just not going to work. Top talent will already be off the market before you can even complete your interview process. One telephone interview and 2 face-to-face interviews should be more than enough to hire the candidate. Don’t expect to know the candidate inside-out, this is simply not possible just through interviews (regardless of number), you will only REALLY know the candidate after you have worked with him/her for 6 months.
  The only exception I make to this rule is when hiring for executive positions, then it’s ok to go on multiple dates before making an offer – but these should be “dates” not interviews. The difference is the formality of it. When hiring an executive, you really need to get to know the person, this can mean meeting up for coffee many times, going out for lunch, dinner, a game of golf and so on – but not 7 interviews!
• “Problem solving” technical tests - if your technical test is more mathematical problem solving than real world programming – then the graduates will ace it, and the experts will fail. You will end up hiring a graduate – NOT the best developer. Expert developers apply design patterns, are aware of security issues, are fluent in OOP and know how to address bottlenecks – you can’t test for this stuff in a technical tests because it needs to be applied in the real world. Graduates on the other hand, know how to multiply 7 by 7 matrices and how to do array based programming.
• Pre-interview technical tests - in the past I have been asked to do 2 technical tests of 1.5 hours each, before even having a telephone interview! Really? I’m expected me to spend half a day of my life, when the company refuses to invest 30 minutes on the phone to explain the role and company in detail? I decided to gracefully decline this opportunity, as I’m sure any developer who is not desperate would also do so – if you are not ready to invest your time, why would the best developers invest their time?
• Poor remuneration – top talent costs top dollar. There, I said it. You want to get the best talent right? The best are smart aren’t they? Smart people KNOW when they are not being paid enough – if you don’t pay enough, they will find someone else who will. Now I’m not saying money is the only buying power you have, but the salary of your top developers must be competitive to the rest of the industry, otherwise you risk losing your greatest asset.

Now I know a lot of people think that their company is about to rule the world, and that all candidates should jump through at least 20 hoops before being made an offer, and anyone how doesn’t jump through all the hoops doesn’t have enough passion about the job/company… but the truth is that top talent is LESS willing to jump through all the hoops, simply because they have many more options (i.e. others who recognize their talent).

Tags: hiring, Hiring Web Developers, interviewing