How to Find Web Developers

You need to offer a competitive salary, great benefits, paid leave, free meals, and a happy team with plenty of work socials. Above all, web developers like minimal micromanagement, the freedom and flexibility to be creative, and a small but happy team. Attention to the finer details in a job post will not go unnoticed.

The thing to bear in mind is that web developers have plenty of suitors, so the little things can make or break your job description. You need to go beyond listing roles and responsibilities to find a good web developer. The best web developers want to know your story. They want to know what your mission is as an organization and how they'll play a part in something great.

It's also a good idea to run your job post by your IT team before advertising it. Developers will typically have a better sense of things like generalizations, oversimplifications, and cliches. The more specific you make your post to the candidate's individual needs, the better.

You need to go the extra mile if you're serious about attracting the best talent. You need to develop a long term strategy that positions your company as a desirable place to work.

• Market your former or current employees as testimonial figures who wax lyrically about their time at your company and the significance of the work you do.
• Host competitions and hackathons with interesting web development challenges that attract the top coders and creates a buzz around your name. Host regular meetups and build a community of web developers who recognize your company as a desirable brand. Order pizzas and drinks and create a fun, collegial environment.
• Attend industry conferences and present your company as a leader in the web development space.
• Partner with universities and make regular appearances at career fairs. Leverage your hackathon network and get the best web developers to engage with students. Exchange information with prospective hires, ask them to write down their details and keep an eye on the best prospects. This will help you recruit a web developer of quality.

If you're unsure how to source web developers, it's a good idea to start by posting to general job posting sites like Indeed. These are great places to start because they get plenty of traffic and they're free.

You'll want to ensure your site is picked up by Google for Jobs too. Google for Jobs allows your posting to be seen in search results. This can greatly increase your job visibility. You can get it picked up by Google by having someone properly format it on your website, or by using a service that creates a properly formatted jobs page for you automatically.

Your next step is to target dedicated job boards for IT professionals. This will narrow your search to specialized programmers who might be the right fit for you. Use a web development job posting site to advertise vacancies.

Candidates often overlook the job requirements and apply anyway, even if they do not meet them. Weed them out by sending out a short email that asks a few basic questions, such as:

• How long have you worked as a web developer?
• Do you have experience using Python?
• Which languages do you have proficiency with?
• Do you have any experience working with clients?

This way, they cannot ignore your questions. If you're worried that your applicants may not be responsive to an email, you may want to try delegating someone to make short phone calls to ask these questions. You will also need to conduct background checks to verify their employment history, application details, criminal record, and more.

You'll want to see if their web development portfolio is consistent with their advertised skill set. Try to match their skills with the work they've done and gauge their level of proficiency. How much attention do they give to user experience? Do they have unique, creative approaches to web design? Are their web pages responsive? This will give you a better idea of the candidate's technical prowess.

Another feature to look for in a web development portfolio is the inclusion of personal projects. Good coders are always working on their passion projects and showcasing them online. This is the hallmark of a web developer who takes pride in and practices their craft outside of work.

A good web developer will typically document their work, so look for notes about who the project was intended for, the challenges they've faced, a timeline, and more. This demonstrates a candidate's organizational and communication skills.

A 15-minute phone interview can help you save time by quickly screening candidates for their suitability. You want to know that the person is competent and has reasonable intelligence. A candidate who looks good on paper but fails in basic social skills during the interview will serve to delay your hiring process, so you'll want to use the phone interview to weed out unsuitable candidates.

Remember to keep it short and to the point. Ask simple questions that prompt conversation and leave the more complex questions for the in-person interview. Ask questions like:

• How much experience do you have with this language?
• What was it like working at your previous company?
• How long did this project on your portfolio take to complete?

At this point, you've got most of what you need to know if a candidate is a right fit for your company, but an in-person interview will give you insight as to how you'd work with the candidate if they are reliable, and how they'll fit in with the rest of your team.

More importantly, it's a chance to continue selling them the job. Introduce them to co-workers, show them around, review the reasons they want to take the job and the benefits you offer. Your questions should gauge their proficiency with different languages, query their development portfolio, and more.

The best way of determining if a candidate would be a good fit for your company is by simulating a coding challenge they're likely to face on the job. Coding challenges give employers the opportunity to observe a developer's thought process and application of logic to solve web development problems.

Popular web development challenges include testing their knowledge of SQL, Angular Forms API, implementing functions in JavaScript, finding and fixing bugs, and more. Use sites like DevSkiller to administer a range of web development tests with varying difficulty levels. You'll get performance metrics that give you an accurate overview of the candidate's technical proficiency.

Finding web developers who are the right fit for your company can be tricky, but web developers don't spend too long looking for a new job. Once you've found a web developer who meets your requirements, you'll want to make them an offer fairly quickly, to take them off the job market before another company finds them. This is often best done in an informal call first, followed by a letter or email that provides the job description, salary, and benefits information.

Poor onboarding is often the cause of isolation for web developers. No matter how experienced and technically proficient your new employee is, everyone stands to benefit from a good orientation. Make sure they get all the support they need. Give them clear and constant communication and make sure their lines of communication are readily available.

• Explain your workflows.
• Ensure they understand their responsibilities.
• Give them all your documentation.
• Ensure that someone reviews their code in the early stages.