Recruiting and Being Recruited

We all know that the software industry is in dire need of more developers. This means that there is also a huge market in finding and hiring those people for companies. Whether it’s an internal team, or an agency, here are my personal tips and tricks for doing it the right way from both sides.

Recruiting

Always send a personal email when you can. Anything that’s copy and paste is likely going to show and be ignored by most developers I’ve talked to.

When sending that email, actually take an interest in the person you’re going after. If you talk to me about my projects on GitHub or blog posts that I’ve written, I’ll be impressed. It’s what I do for fun and what motivates me. If you can tie that back to a reason why you’re interested in me, I might start to listen.

Don’t call me. I don’t like to talk on the phone, it’s wasted time in my opinion because there isn’t a whole lot you can do when you’re on the phone. Also, if it’s during the day and I’m at work, I’m probably not going to give you much attention because I don’t want all my co-workers to know that there’s a chance I might be leaving for another place.

If my name was given to you by a developer that you know, see if they’ll reach out to me instead of you. No offense, but I’d rather hear about a place from somebody that’s doing what I’ll be doing.

Being Recruited

Don’t be a jerk. These people are just doing their jobs, the alternative is that you never get contacted and that could mean a variety of things, including the fact that you might not be too desirable as a developer. Not all messages are going to be genuine, but it’s clear that some can be taken as a compliment.

If you get a call and don’t like phone calls (like me), add that phone number to a contact on your phone named Recruiter. You won’t have to worry about answering another call you may not be interested in, or if you are, it gives you time to walk somewhere private so you are free to chat without broadcasting to your peers that you’re spending time on the phone with recruiters.

Feel free to ignore the copy/paste emails. If it’s not sent to you personally, it’s probably alright not to respond personally.

Respond to the personal ones. I’ve found that even things as simple as “Thanks, but I’m not looking at the moment.” go a long way. You might be a great developer, but nobody wants to work with a jerk. If you curse and yell back, you’re just telling them that you’re difficult to work with and probably not a very nice or polite person.

Don’t be jerk. I don’t know why I have to repeat this. Doesn’t this advice just go with being a person? I get several people per week reaching out to me. I assume largely because I’m not terrible at what I do and I spend a lot of time out in the open online. Maybe you get so many that you can’t respond to them all, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the topic.

Thoughts?

These are just my thoughts; we all have different experiences and different opinions, but I’d love to hear how others feel on this topic.