Four Rules for Effective Recruiting a Senior-level Developer

Finding and hiring Senior Developers is a real headache for HR-specialists: Senior-level developers are in-demand specialists who are very picky in choosing a place of work. In addition, the number of available on the market Senior-level tech specialists can be counted on one hand.

How to organize recruiting processes so as a Senior-level specialist considers your job offer? What are the key aspects of recruiting and how to find out problem areas in staff selection?

In the article, we'll answer these questions, and as a bonus, we'll tell you how to retain your IT talent, because sometimes it turns out to be much more difficult than receiving a signed offer.

Senior developers: let's define the terminology

Arts of negotiation says: Before sending a message, decide on the terms. This is important because you and we can put different meanings into the concept of "Senior Developer".

Having worked on the IT recruitment market for more than 13 years, we've accepted a simple truth: there is no clear division into Junior-Middle-Senior levels. It's ludicrous to believe that a person who has been working on the market for 5 years is automatically defined as a "Senior". The most important thing is the skills that the specialist developed during this time.

Therefore, we suggest not to start from the numbers far-fetched by HR-specialists. From our perspective, a Senior-level developer is a specialist who:

Doesn't need extra education;
Knows the market realities;
Is well-versed in the latest technology;
Knows exactly the cost of his labour;
Quickly goes into processes, even those that he or she is new at;
Is able to do the job you offer well (he or she is apro).

Senior developers: recruitment process

Super, we've figured out the terminology. Let's move on to specific actions.

Metrics

In recruiting, metrics play a key role. Analyze your every step: track the conversion of job opening applications, analyze the effectiveness of recruiting channels, look for bottlenecks. For example, if you find out that most candidates drop out during the interview stage, while you know that this stage requires a lot of time and costs, you are doing something wrong. Check how many stages you have, whether you have a test assignment (it's unacceptable for the Senior-level tech specialist to complete the test assignment), what questions you ask, etc.

Metrics help you evaluate the effectiveness of recruiting. If it turns out that the search and selection process in your company leaves much to be desired, the metrics will show you exactly at what selection stage you have problems.

If your recruiting strategy suffers, don't ignore it: change, modify, ask contact professionals (agencies, freelancers).

Recruiting channels

By using metrics you can also evaluate the most effective recruiting channels for a certain position. Our experience has shown that Telegram, LinkedIn, and, of course, our own candidate database is working well today :)

You can also try our new service CVHub: we've collected the most relevant candidate CV's for you for the knock-down price on the market.

Trends

IT recruiting is just as dynamic as the tech industry. Having set the task of finding a cool developer for your company, take the effort to check how fresh your knowledge about the market is.

This also applies to the skills of the specialist you are searching for and to check how outdated the technology you implement in your company is.

If during the checking you noted that your project has too much legacy, or the salaries of specialists have grown so much that you can't offer a competitive salary, then there are two ways:

1

Do not try to get the moon on a stick, and think about how to lower the demands for the candidate.
2

Think over the competent specialist motivation

Motivation

We constantly say: perks like VHI, cookies in the office and aren't attractive anymore. You need something more effective, something that your "competitors" don't have. We don't know how your business works, so we won't provide abstract examples.

But we know for sure: there is definitely something in your company that will make the Senior-level pro consider your offer. It remains to find it :)

Bonus: how to retain a Senior-level Developer?

Hiring a Senior-level developer is usually much easier than retaining them. The main rule of retention runs as follows: don't stop appreciating your specialist after he or she had accepted the offer. Raise the salary, give different and challenging tasks, hold regular meetings where you won't only give feedback about the work of a specialist, but also hear what the specialist would like to improve in the company.

This is very valuable information that will allow you to find the right vector and keep working with IT talent for more many years to come.

Also, take it for granted that an experienced professional is always on a passive job search. The market will definitely offer something better than you can.

Therefore, strive to constantly improve business, launch projects, motivate your specialists, and maybe your Senior will take the position of the Team Leader in a couple of years.

Polina Barabanova

Content Manager at Lucky Hunter

Specializes in tech staff recruitment, startups, tech research, career, HR, and news topics. With her expertise, she provides valuable insights and practical advice to navigate the ever-evolving tech industry.

And if you doubt your capabilities and want to get a guaranteed result, contact Lucky Hunter. Together we'll find awesome tech talents in record time!