Technology companies seem to be having a lot of trouble finding worthy candidates. Alcor offers our help. Especially for you, the employers who are having trouble recruiting software engineers, our team has put together a quick hiring guide. It’s based on our team’s years of experience.

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Recruiters who cannot and do not know how to hire

For example, about 95% of the recruiter’s letters that a job seeker might find can be left unattended. And even the 5% that a demanding engineer will consider have the invariable message of “go ahead and apply for the job.” This is an extremely unfortunate start, and many can’t shake it off.

Here’s an example: a recent email from an in-house recruiter at one “cool” start-up company with what is essentially an offer: “Hey guys, got a job offer! Interested?” After responding, job seekers were directed to their website. They didn’t even give a link, they just suggested, “Visit our website and look at the ‘Jobs’ page.

Are you guys serious?

If a job seeker asks a question, that’s what in commerce means PRIORITY TO BUY. The person might even fall for the idea that the company is cool. Also, if he is contacted by a recruiter (not the other way around), it’s as if he is perceived as a prospective customer.

Let’s not even mention freelance recruiters who just spam people.

Resumes submitted to the database

So the job seeker should humbly submit his resume to the database and then hope and pray that a response comes. That’s to be expected from mega corporations, but that’s also what start-up companies with 10 employees do.  

The most ironic example of a resume sent to a database is a resume sent to a company whose chief technology officer publicly ranted about how corporate software vendors did the exact same thing to him when he wanted to buy a product. And he hardly saw any connection.

Narrowly-specialized positions

“Server Application Optimization Engineer Node.js V8 (Korean)”

We agree, it’s made up. But there have been some very similar ones.

Sometimes it takes special skills to solve a serious problem that occurred AT THE TIME. And that’s perfectly normal. What’s not normal is pretending that such special skills are needed for every position and all the time. What if your company stops using JavaScript in server applications? Would the employee get fired? What if Karen gets fired? 

Companies should hire people, not full-time employees.

Positions incompletely described

It’s hard to say how many jobs you can find called “Ruby and Rails Developer”. The title says absolutely nothing about what the job actually involves. What kind of problems will have to be solved? Do I have to do programming or do I just have to fiddle with Rails? Will I need C/C++ experience? Will I need to have experience in distributed programming? And a person’s interest in graphs and set theory? Will it be necessary to do PSD? The job seeker has only questions and no motivation to seek answers. 

The conviction that a person can only hold the position he or she used to hold.

An engineer, for example, has been employed for 16 years. In that time he has acquired not only technical but also non-technical. He’s not a “Rails developer” or a “.Net engineer,” although those are the positions he previously held.

He likes solving problems with software. And sometimes with hardware. And sometimes just sitting around, thinking and talking.

Standard technical interview

There are many variations, but they all boil down to about the following:

The applicant is asked to write a program for a Fibonacci function, or write down a program on a whiteboard…

Be interesting

Interest. You have to be interesting to the job seeker. After all, he’s looking for us, not us for him. And as if having fun or alcohol at work is the best utility. Solving complex problems is what attracts talented engineers. 

Show attention/interest

Genuine enthusiasm is contagious and persuasive. Fake enthusiasm is dangerous: at best, you can be seen as a fool, and at worst, you can attract naive idiots.

If you don’t have genuine enthusiasm, but still hire specialists, you are committing a kind of moral fraud. Maybe you should think about it.

Express appreciation to candidates

You should show appreciation when a person is interested in an open position.

A few years ago, there was a case. A man sent his resume to a database. He was a good candidate for the job and wrote a cover letter as required. But I didn’t get a reply. Six months have passed, and came the answer, they say the man is still interested in the job. Of course the answer was negative. Yes, it’s absurd. But it still happens. It is bad practice to turn people away.

Meet the programmers

An unexpected test for hiring managers: let them name all the programmers they know by name. Don’t count the ones they already work with!

So, how many names did you get?

The real foundation of successful hiring is getting to know people and talking to them. That’s what “networking” (building a network of useful business connections and contacts) is all about. Unfortunately, the term “networking” today has become synonymous with nerdy hangouts and formal dinners where important introductions tend not to happen.

It’s like personal dating, where you have to go out and meet people. And as is often the case with personal dating, it’s not about meeting a mister/lover, it’s about meeting people who will eventually introduce you to a mister/lover of what you need.

If you are serious about recruiting a quality team, you have a long way to go. So proceed accordingly.

Let me do the programming, damn it

The tools of a technical interview are simple: an experienced interviewer and a computer. Everything else (whiteboard, conference room) is optional.

Best Interviews. These are conversations with each candidate in person for half an hour or more. It’s pretty long and time consuming. But it allows you to get answers to all the questions that the parties have in relation to each other.

My best interview experience was a half-hour interview with every candidate on the team. This fairly lengthy interview allowed me to get answers to questions that neither the employer nor I would have been able to discuss in other settings.

 Are you having trouble hiring programmers for your company and don’t know why? Write a line or two to Alcor and tell them about it. Seriously. We’re professionals in this field.  If you’re honest with yourself and us, honest (and frank) with you.