It’s not enough to know the technological stack and even the background of the specialist you need for your project to find the perfect candidate. First and foremost, you need to have a skilled recruiter or even the whole team to help you detect the one and only professional who’ll fit in your team as the final detail of a 4000 piece puzzle.
There are several ways to work with recruiters. You may hire your in-house team, and they will build all the processes from scratch. Or you can use our guide and outsource the whole thing, significantly reducing the operational costs and saving time, which you can use for developing and promoting your project.
Either way, there are few tips you have to know before you start working with recruiters and looking for your one and only (or even a few) developers. The perfect recruitment has several steps to it, but when structured correctly, it shouldn’t look like Dante’s circles of Hell. Here’s how it should be:
1. Service specification
At first, the recruiters have to identify the services and engineers you are looking for and gather all details about your project and team. They should understand what specific services and engineers you are looking for, what kind of projects you are working on, and what kind of teams you are currently working with. After this consultation, they have to approximately estimate the costs and sign a mutual agreement on the final tasks.
2. Job description preparation
They set up a prioritized list of requirements, specific qualifications, desired characteristics, and relevant experience. They should identify your needs and expectations to set up a list of the relevant requirements for the candidates. Then they generate a job description that includes all of the above.
3. Commercial offer
If you decide to work with a talent management and acquisition partner, your next step is to sign an agreement that includes the general terms and conditions of your partnership. After you agree on the budget and requirements for your future team, sign an official agreement, compiled by a legal representative. It should include general terms and conditions of your cooperation.
4. Recruiters assigned, the search started
If you have your in-house recruitment team, then you must know how important it is to widen your internal database of CVs. After all, the wider the database – the quicker the search. If you do decide to outsource the whole recruitment process, be sure to choose the best on the market, with a large database of CVs and a skilled team of IT Recruiters with significant experience who conduct pre-screening interviews. They should post a job on their web-site, popular social networking sites, and job boards such as Glassdoor, Indeed, etc.
5. Pre-screening
The pre-screening process begins with an IT Recruiter interviewing all the interested candidates. The recruiter is conducting pre-screening to check if the candidate meets all the requirements. Over this interview, they examine the level of technical competencies, knowledge of English, and motivating factors. After this, they send you the candidate’s CV with detailed feedback from the recruiter including information about salary expectations and notice period.
6. Technical task
To build confidence in your candidate’s ability, add technical tests in your hiring process. These tests will also help you to make an accurate and data-driven appraisal of the candidates’ creativity and thought patterns. You can prepare your own test task or your partner in talent management and acquisition can offer you help from their skilled developers, who can create a task, and check it with you to ensure that the assessment correlates with the job requirements.
7. Interview with a manager
A responsible recruiter should organize the interview in any conferencing tool. Usually, there are two types of interviews with a manager – a technical one where a manager evaluates the candidate’s level of competence, during which technical questions are asked or a test task is given instead of doing it remotely. And an interview with a manager (CTO, R&D manager, etc.) to check the soft skills. These interviews can be combined into one stage.
8. Job offer
Once a candidate passes all stages of the selection, it is time to draft the employment contract and make the offer. First of all, the recruiter has to receive a confirmation on the Job Offer and its conditions (position title, starting date, cost confirmation, etc.). For a Job Offer signing, it is always better to invite a candidate to the office to discuss employment conditions personally and involve Team Lead or team members to highlight the advantages of working in this team.
9. Onboarding
Last, but not least – onboarding! The first day can be awkward, but you can win some good loyalty points by putting in extra effort and helping your new team member settle in. Employee’s workplace has to be prepared, cleaned, and equipped with the necessary credentials and facilities before the start. The regular work equipment can be changed upon request by the system administrator, who can consult on the equipment. You can think of giving the standard welcome pack to every newcomer, or you can welcome your new employee with something special.
We believe that following these steps will help you organize a smooth and enjoyable recruiting process for all sides. And when you do find your perfect match among all the fish in the IT sea, be sure to regularly check-in to make sure that your new employee is comfortable, happy, and engaged. When the employee is cared about, it significantly boosts retention rates, and your union is going to be a match made in heaven.
