Ask HN: Clever Recruiting Techniques? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Clever Recruiting Techniques?

32 pointsjack789042 comments

For me, the biggest surprise about running a startup has been how difficult it is to recruit top-notch engineers. It is shockingly, bewilderingly, impossibly difficult to find qualified web developers. Granted, my notion of "qualified" is discriminating, but it's been surprisingly difficult nonetheless.

I've tried all the traditional channels for finding developers: job boards, networking events, and my own personal network. It's time to get more creative. I'd love to hear about any clever techniques or tactics others have used to identify promising web developer candidates.

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Forget clever. Try providing a place people want to work, doing interesting stuff, with reasonable pay, working with smart people, with the hardware and software needed to get the job done, along with a sense of mission, excitment and purpose. Take a humble attitude to recruiting them instead of requiring people to "prove that that want to for us". Give people a job that the want to rush to in the morning to get started on. Demonstrate during the interview process that your company is smart and understands software development, by asking smart questions that reveal meaningful insights into the candidates capabilities as a coder. It's not all about you - ask them what they want - take an interest. People want jobs that make them feel a sense of mission and purpose, along with reasonable reward for their skills and experience.

That's very nice and how it should be.

Still,if noone knows about your ideal workplace, you're still stuck trying to differentiate your firm from hundreds of others vying for attention with all the same marketing-speak.

Still this is only half of the equation. You're basically making the HR version of 'build a better mousetrap'. Which everybody who has ever build a product knows is not true - you still need great marketing to let people know about your product (job, in this case).

Speaking as someone who has started and run both small and medium-sized organizations, i would suggest the following:

1) Hire folks who exhibit good problem-solving skills and possess a good attitude. These folks usually are easily trained and become productive in a short span of time. But you have to invest in your employees - through training, through remuneration, through building an open culture.

Good leaders work with the tools they have and the people they have - not set improbable standards. You would be surprised by what people are capable of if you support them, encourage them, train them and give them room to learn by making mistakes.

2) Nowadays i usually try to find good open source developers in my area, study their code, check out their blog listings, check out their mailing list responses - and then do my best to convince them to work with me. These folks are among the BEST.

3) In the past, i have conducted coding competitions in universities and collages - and have hired many of the student participants after interacting with them informally, talking to their friends and checking out their code.

4) I would also humbly suggest that Web development has such an enormous set of great tools, books, articles, tutorials etc, that any curious and persistent person can pick up the basics in a short span of time - given the right motivation.

I am now using developer IRC channels to recruit.

After exhausting agencies, linkedin, and adverts I was particularly frustrated by what I had seen and the quality of who we had interviewed.

So I asked the simple question, "Where do devs hangout?". And I'm not talking bars, I'm talking those who are busy actually doing stuff, especially if it's stuff they're working on in their own time (a passion for something).

And the answer to myself was in the community channels for a given tech. For the most part this was freenode IRC rooms, but sometimes it's Google Groups.

The important thing with approaching people through these channels is not to go in cold or piss them off. But as this should be an area which you know too (or your CTO does, or other devs you have does), then you should open the dialogue in their comfort zone.

Encourage use of the channels and just watch for a bit to see who is giving answers to other people... they're the ones who know what they're doing, and they're the influencers.

Once you know who they are, ask them if they're looking for work, where they're located (timezones help here, if you're in the UK go in early in the morning and you mostly have europeans, and if you're in the US go in late as you mostly have Americans). Even if they're not looking, they may very well know someone in the channel who is looking and they will recommend a good person.

Does this method work? Yes, for me it has done.

Using HN to hire is one example of this (and we found a terrific graduate who started today), and I did the same with the android-dev IRC channel to get a great Android dev. I've also done the same with hiring a great devops guy (another IRC channel).

Basically... if you can't find them, and if you aren't doing things like airbnb (great hiring pages that go viral), red gate (giving away ipads for good interview candidates), then spend your time and effort to go where they go.

I wouldn't call this clever. It's just very basic head-hunting. But frankly that's what you're doing. Stop expecting that the good guys are out there looking for you, they're busy doing stuff... the average guys are out there looking for you.

The most clever I've seen so far is to start with this code:

http://github.com/mmcgrana/gitcred

and then work down the list looking for languages and frameworks of interest.

I saw that earlier in the year - it's a nice idea, but I can't help but think there's a significant portion of people who aren't on GitHub (for example, I have an account, but the majority of my projects are on BitBucket, mostly due to technology choices).

Still, it's certainly a reasonable initial source of people, and I would imagine you'll find that a lot of the "good" programmers who aren't in this list are only a couple of real-life connections away, at most.

Maybe it's not the technique but you, your company, your employees, your location, your pay that is turning off engineers.

Hear hear. Perhaps not the poster specifically, but many companies wonder why they can't get good engineers but offer nothing in the areas you identify.

Maybe so. One of my pet peeves on HN is people being so concerned about avoiding the appearance of self-promotion that they leave out specific information that would help the conversation.

I was recruited to Spotify through a programming contest. The site seems to be down, but here is the google cache:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...

I didn't do great in the competition (67th place or so), but I suppose the main thing was to attract people who actually enjoy programming (and challenges).

A was also on an interview for Propellerhead (http://www.propellerheads.se/) in 2003 after they had a (kind of hard) programming quiz that went viral. Didn't get that gig though.

I don't consider myself the worlds best programmer, but I feel that it's kind of demeaning with a programming contest. It's like when you go to a job recruiting agency and they run all this shit IQ test shit on you. If they want you in that setting - run like hell.

If you want me, let me show you what I have done - I don't want to compete in a programming contest where the grand prize is a poorly paid job, where you are expected to work unpaid overtime and be subservient. I know my worth, and is pretty happy running my own startup business defining my own terms as I go along.

I looked at a job at klarna but the thought of spending some time re-sharpening my skills at Erlang and then spending some days doing their code challenge unpaid - not so interested. I'd rather do something else and get my moneys worth for my time. Although I'm kind of tempted for a job where I get a chance to work face-to-face with some more senior people to learn from them.

Some time though I might want to take a job, my plan to be able to skip all these silly programming contests is to have some open source projects or contributions to show. I have a couple of project that I wish I had been able to open-source, but I think that I will go by the route of contributing to some existing project. I feel that recruiting by looking at open source is a very good thing, where the interests of both employer and employee are upheld.

The programming contests should be fun! If they aren't your thing, then you are right to opt-out of the process as there likely won't be a good culture match. However, I think it is a little off to characterize them as somehow extorting job applicants.

I've participated in several programming contests and think it's a lot of fun. what I dislike is when a company is hiring and expect applicants to do free labour. it's bad for everybody, the company doesn't get to hire people who have got a life or are too busy with other things. and the applicant is welcomed by the message - we expect you to work for free. having a programming competition in the open might alleviate some of the problems of doing work and sending it off into the void.

I think that the code challenge was mostly aimed at students, where the time spent writing something semi cool is not just wasted time. Having been on the hiring side for software developers at Klarna I have seen too many people in interviews that can't "write a function that counts the number of words in a sentence, in any programming language". So having something that measures your competence pre-interview is good.

When I got hired by Klarna I never had to do any programming. I had actual code out there in the wild that I could point to.

Getting to the interview stage at Klarna is easy. Getting an actual job offer is harder.

(Btw. If you don't like IQ tests then don't look for a job at Klarna...)

It might have been the recruiting agency that was at fault at the number of tests. I had to do the IQ test there and some sort of introductory programming test. All done and well, but then I was hit with this rather comprehensive programming test or whatever that had to be done in Erlang (I learned later I could have used any programming language). I just didn't feel it would be worth my time.

A friend who is a really smart guy got in touch with a recruiter from google during his last year at the university doing his PhD. At first it seemed interesting but when he saw how much time the recruiter expected him to put in for interviews and tests he wasn't so interested any more and continued his career in academia instead.

I agree that open source contributions is a great way to show what you can do. I don't really have the time to make significant contributions to open source projects on my free time. A four hour programming contest, that I can do. I put a lot of effort into the follow up assignment though, but I'm pretty sure that if I'd had a similar sized project that I could show, that would have been fine too. I don't think you will find a single company that will pay you for time spent on tests or assignments during the recruitment process. It's not like you go in and create production code for them.

Personally I would gladly pay a prospective employee let's say 2-4 hours worth of consultancy fee to come over and code a simple example test, or preferably do a minor thing as a consultant (let's say a few days work). That is if I have screened them before for basic qualification. It would set the scene for a good future relationship and might help encourage the person to take the job.

It's also good to start out with consultancy before actually hiring someone to screen and to set up expectations of level of delivery - consultants work harder and have a more professional attitude than a straight-up employee. Though I don't know if the transition from consultant to employee is that easy, I've certainly preferred to stay a consultant and seen no benefit in becoming an employee.

"consultants work harder and have a more professional attitude than a straight-up employee" - citation needed

That's from personal experience, but of course YMMV, but I've often found myself in the situation where it's late in the evening, things are not working right in the production environment and the only people left at the office are the consultants.

(Responding way late :)

That is because consultants are getting paid by the hour and are often not in their home town so their option is 1) get paid more or 2) go to the hotel alone and watch TV. I always chose option 1 if I could.

In a company with vested employees who believe in the company, there will be no comparison between the employees and consultants in their dedication and professionalism.

Why was this downvoted? I listed two novel ways of recruiting that got me interested. That is surely a valid response to the OP's question.

Yeah, Dropbox's challenge was/is excellent.

We can't really help you much unless tell us how you define qualified.

How about changing your recruiting strategy from 'top' to 'potential' since it's so hard to reach top ones?

Diff from big-fat-cat company, startup has a big advantage that it's going to grow and employees can really feel it.

This is a good chance to cultivate ownership, loyalty, sense of belonging, etc.

Good luck :)

You'll find tons of high quality mailing lists for whatever skill set you are looking for. Python, C etc... Read through the archive and find people that are active and provide solid answers. Get in touch with them and see how far you can go.

Go on campus. Do a presentation with a student group, i.e. IEEE/ACM programming SIG...

Join a professional developer organization... Plenty of Linux, iPhone, Android, .Net, etc. developer groups in most major tech hubs...

You could always pay more.

I'm not sure "spend more money" constitutes a clever idea.

It's close to impossible to be competitive with high flyers (the Google, Microsoft, etc) when you're a small company or startup. Just imagine yourself in their shoes : would you rather work for some unknown company, with no benefits, no carrier perspective and little money, or Google? Yeah, you see what I mean. You need to take a different, peculiar approach to recruitment.

So far, my very best way to recruit was through internship. The downside is that it will take long months to get acceptable engineers, then they won't stay with you for more than a year or two once they're competent.

It's close to impossible to be competitive with high flyers (the Google, Microsoft, etc) when you're a small company or startup.

This is utter nonsense. There are plenty of people who aren't necessarily interested in working for Google or Microsoft. Neither does working for a startup mean little pay and neither benefits nor career prospects (assuming that's what you meant by 'carrier perspective')

That's certainly true in "the Valley". In Europe, it's nigh to impossible to attract really qualified people in a small company/startup. They all work in safe, warm places :)

I pretty much entirely disagree with that. OK, this is a product hire rather than engineering, but this is us:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/sep/22/timetric-fin...

We're obviously delighted, and it wasn't easy, but it can be done. It's more than purely a sales job, particularly if you're trying to bring in someone really good.

We're six full time right now, by the way.

>>>then they won't stay with you for more than a year or two once they're competent.

Only true if you keep paying them like juniors and don't advance their career appropriately to their personal/professional development.

You have discovered why recruiters exist.

It is a really tough problem no doubt. We use interviewstreet.com to screen candidates before spending time on an interview, saves us a lot of time.

How about job fairs? Social media?

I sometimes see job ads on facebook. I have no idea if this is true in general, but in my case, I have been surprised at how good of a match they tend to be. I am not sure exactly what characteristics the employers are targeting when they set up the ad campaign, but I can guess based on the fact that one or two of the ads specifically stated that the company employed other Caltech grads (I have a BS in CS from that school).

Job fairs from universities are amazing places to find talent (and that cheap ;)). They aren't refined yet, but if you find the right people they are willing to learn, and are usually fast at it.

Yeah, the young talent still in school still have a hard time finding work. They are so desperate, they would take basically anything they can get their hands on. Give them a good proposition - a reason to work hard and stay!

how technically strong is your CTO?

I'm looking for alpha employers to find very qualified programmers through Code Anthem. Email me amber at codeanthem dot com.

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