Where to recruit and how to hire Frontend Developers? Guide

Frontend developers are very popular specialists on the market. After polling more than 49,000 tech professionals from around the world, the Stackoverflow team had rendered a verdict: Frontend Developers are in the TOP 3 most popular IT professions (data from 2020). At the same time, according to the same Stackoverflow data, more than 80% of IT specialists aren't on an active job search, more than 30% of them aren't interested in new offers.

Realizing how difficult it's to find a tech specialist, and especially a Fronted developer, we've decided to prepare a full guide on sourcing and hiring professionals for you.

The information presented in the article is based on the experience of the Lucky Hunter team: for 3.5 years of our work, we've filled 100% of roles for the position of a Frontend Developer.

Where to search for Frontend Developers

To simplify, we've divided the channels into several types: social networks and messengers, professional forums and platforms, specialized services and tools for IT recruiting.

Social networks and messengers

The most effective channels for tech specialists sourcing, in particular Frontend developers, are undoubtedly Telegram and LinkedIn.

Telegram messenger
It's extremely popular in Russia. Telegram has special channels for posting openings (more often on a fee basis), thematic chats (in your case, for Frontend developers), access to private dialogues.
LinkedIn
It's a professional social network created for communication between employers and employees. It's easy to search on the LinkedIn search for "frontend-developer", change search settings(by candidate's profile language, location, place of work) and start. We'll prepare a step-by-step guide on how to recruit tech talents on LinkedIn very soon, so we recommend you join our social media to follow our news.

You can also search for specialists on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. These methods are not prohibited, but we recommend writing to developers in these social media networks in an extreme case: after all, this is a private space where specialists relax after a hard working day.

Professional forums and platforms

In this section, we'll talk about GitHub and Stackoverflow.

GitHub
It's a web service that allows tech professionals to host their own code, share it with colleagues and jointly develop it in Open Source. To use the service, you need to register. Then you can start searching. You can search for specialists using three parameters: location, programming language, number of followers.

So your request will look something like this: language: javascript location: London, followers:> 5. Such a request will allow you to find specialists that know JavaScript (a key skill of a Frontend Developer), live in London and have more than 5 followers.

You can exclude unnecessary parameters from the request, and leave, for example, only the programming language. Don't forget to select the "Users" column in the list, as by default GitHub shows requests by the repository.

GitHub Specifics

It is important to understand that GitHub is not a platform for CV search or a job board. It's kind of a social network for developers.

You won't know if your candidate knows Node.Js, React, etc. GitHub will give you information about the activity of your candidate on the site (and, therefore, show whether the candidate is interested in his profession or not), will allow you to see code examples, figure out the popularity of a specialist (based on the number of followers).

In addition, GitHub can help you find links to your web developer's social networks.

StackOverflow
It's a platform for communication of IT specialists, a service of questions and answers. The best way to search for tech professionals on StackOverflow is a boolean search.

Many Frontend developers are also good at design (and sometimes even combine the roles of UI/UX and Frontend), so they often post their portfolios on design resources such as Coroflot, Behance and Krop. Try these methods too.

Boolean Search — Tool for IT Recruiting

Boolean Search

Boolean Search is a Google query based on the specified parameters. Thanks to these parameters, we can exclude irrelevant queries from the search results.

An example of your Google query would look something like this:(intitle: resume OR inurl: resume) ("front end developer" OR "frontend developer") -job -jobs - vacancy - opening

You can modify this request depending on your needs, add new conditions or exclude existing ones. To display specialist accounts on StackOverflow, you need to enter the parameter: "site". It will look something like this: site: stackoverflow.com/users/ "badges" ("front-end Developer" OR "frontend developer") Similarly, you can search on GitHub.

Services for tech recruiting

Today there is a great number of services for tech recruiting. Some of them are AmazingHiring, Podbor.io, and our new service - CVHub.

How to Hire Frontend Developers? Checklist

1

Opening
Make an attractive job opening description.
2

Stages
Minimize the number of recruiting stages. Ideally, don' include a test assignment, especially if you are searching for a Senior Frontend Developer.
3

Motivation
Implement the latest tech trends into your project.

We think about "perks", high salary and a cool team, you already know.

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.

Attention! This tools and tips are suitable only if you understand who you are searching for, know how to communicate with developers, and understand the market realities. If you doubt, please contact Lucky Hunter.