Your company is expected to move more quickly than ever before in order to remain ahead of your competitors. With countless priorities to juggle, allocating time to source, onboard, build and scale an engineering team that will get you where you need to go can feel like a daunting project. Add in the fact that the current market is extremely volatile and your challenges have increased by a quantum factor. 

The state of the hiring market, especially when it comes to recruiting software engineers, has been shifting with the onset of pandemic restrictions as many qualified software developers opt to work remotely and experience more freedom to choose companies and what they are offered. What may seem like a lucrative career prospect for talent, poses a risk for recruiters who suddenly find themselves fighting over candidates and struggling to fill positions. In fact, CodinGame surveyed 15k developers and HR managers and discovered that 61% of recruiters have said that finding tech talent is their biggest challenge for recruitment in 2021. 

Source: CodinGame’s research 

Modern-day market software developer hiring challenges 

The tech hiring market of 2021 is volatile as demand for talent is rising higher than ever. Here are just some of the challenges that recruiters face on a daily basis: 

• Each potential candidate is being approached by many different recruiters every week. Even if you are able to engage candidates and make them interested in the role and the company, it is a challenge not to lose them. 
• The longer the process the more likely candidates are to drop off. It’s important to optimize the process and make it as fast as possible, especially when it comes to final decisions. 
• The more steps in the process, the higher the risk of losing candidates. Every step increases the time it takes from approaching a candidate to making a decision about hiring them. Take too long and by the time that you’re ready to make an offer they will have been picked up by another company. 

Expanding on the challenge of the multi-step hiring process, it’s often the case when another company has to be involved. Once the client company comes into the picture and wants to take an active part in hiring, it adds to the number of steps and makes the process even longer. Then you may run into issues with scheduling; interviewing takes time, especially if there are several rounds. All the while the risk of the candidate dropping out increases. 

In the current climate, a protracted multi-step process is no longer a viable option. If you really want to succeed, you need to take a different route in the hiring process. 

Setting your team up for success is a challenge of its own. But first, you need a team that is up for the challenge. Let’s go over a few ways how you can optimize your software developer hiring process reflecting on the current realities. 

Solution 1: Fewer steps 

The reality of the hiring market is that if you start off the recruitment process with ten candidates, by the end of the first week you will lose two of them. By the end of the second week, another two will be gone. And by the end of week 3, you’ll be lucky to have even one left. It may be tempting to keep a big pool of candidates and have something to choose from. But with how fast people now tend to move from one position to another, you have to think fast and not keep your candidates waiting, lest someone else will snatch them right from under your nose. 

One way to deal with this is to have team interviews instead of multiple rounds of interviews for your candidate with each department or interviewer. 

Pros: 

• It’s a faster process if instead of four separate interviews you have one with different interviewers. 
• Involving more people in the interview helps reduce or entirely avoid bias in the hiring process. 
• Team interviews help make the hiring process more streamlined and consistent. 
• Candidates are introduced to company culture. 

Cons: 

• Each interviewer has a limited time to talk to the candidate and cannot go deeper on some topics. 
• More stress inducing for the candidate and may result in poor outcomes. 
• Team interviews require more preparation make sure they are well-structured and questions aren’t overlapping. 
• Interviewers see other interviewers react to the candidate and this may influence their judgement. 

Solution 2: Speed it up 

The hiring process may consist of multiple steps, each one requiring feedback on the candidate’s performance. It’s often the case that it takes days if not weeks to hear back from all people involved, since interviewers and hiring managers are already as busy as it gets. This may be addressed by building awareness in the company so that everyone knew the importance of fast feedback, perceiving it as part of the company culture. 

As practice shows, this is something absolutely realistic and achievable once you set up the process. We see more and more companies making the offers within one day, so that is something to consider. 

Pros: 

• Fast turnaround means lesser risk of losing a valuable candidate in the process. 
• More efficient and productive hiring. 
• Quick feedback provides good candidate experience as it shows your commitment and that you treat them as a partner. 

Cons: 

• If the hiring process is rushed, there’s always a risk of hiring someone who isn’t the right fit for the project or the company. 
• Risk of miscommunication. 

Solution 3: Efficiency 

Be efficient and make sure there is no time wasted in the process. During the interview, interviewers should only ask questions that matter and that help them assess the candidate. Make sure it’s not some casual chit-chat about nothing. Interviewers should be properly prepared to talk to the candidate, i.e. they know the role, get familiar the candidate’s CV upfront, etc. 

Pros: 

• Interviews are more to the point, so you may discuss the position and the project in more detail and nuance.
• Interviewee gets a more realistic impression of the company and what the role is about. 

Cons: 

• Some candidates may prefer a more personal approach to interviewing and may view your to-the-point attitude as cold or robotic. This way you may deter talented candidates from your project and opt for a better cultural fit. 

Solution 4: Trust the vendor 

As you are looking to find your “dream team”, you may want to get involved in the hiring process and get to know what people you are going to be working with. However, this will mean extra steps and longer process. Realistically, there are no companies that can do it all within one week if the client must be involved. 

There is another way to efficient recruitment with fast turnaround. Essentially, you will get the best results and most impact if you trust your vendor to handle the process. If fully responsible for the hiring process, their first priority is to put together a team that is efficient and just right for your needs, and they will not let exceptional talent slip past them. 

In a 2019 article, Glassdoor touched on some woes of recruitment and noted that the average candidate drop-off rate can be as high as 80%. All of this is attributed to the slow and complicated hiring process paired up with a high number of applicants. An optimized process where the vendor takes the lead shows a completely different picture. Summing up the last quarter of 2021, we saw a drop-off rate of 25%. 

Pros: 

• It’s the fastest way to set up your team and start on the project. 
• Significantly reduced candidate drop-off rate. 
• You are not losing potential strong hires. 
• Vendor with strong experience in hiring engineers can provide great candidate experience that strengthens your employer brand. 

Cons: 

• You don’t get to control the entire process and may find it difficult to completely rely on someone else to make final hiring decisions. This can be addressed by finding a vendor that you can truly trust with the process and know to deliver on their promises. 

In conclusion 

All things considered, the point stands. When starting on a new project, it’s best to let your vendor handle the entire hiring process from start to finish. This way they can quickly put together a team that will work well together. That is what brings the best results in a fast-moving market with vigorous competition. 

Finding just one right person can be tough, setting up a whole team is a challenge not for the faint of heart. At Symphony Solutions we want to give you the experience of getting on board with a team that is right for you. Read more about our services or contact us to inquire about how we can help you build your dedicated team fast.