The times we are working in have spurred a flow of never-ending change in technology and trends. But are you ready to start narrowing down your potential list of candidates? Before you start hiring, you should ask yourself these questions to be more clear about what you need, when you need it, and how much you’re willing to spend for it.
Must ask questions before you start hiring in 2020
By when do you need the developers?
Time to hire is one of the most important considerations that affects your hiring process. If having a minimum viable product is an immediate requirement, it is better to hire qui
- How quickly do you need a developer?
- Do you have enough time on your hands to plan out a proper evaluation process?
Clarify your needs before you start looking into sources. If time is a constraint, it is advisable to turn to hiring agencies. And if you can plan and execute a specialized hiring process for yourself, it can surely be worth it. There are so many developers on the internet just on the lookout for work. GitHub, for example, is a community full of people you need.
It is advisable to turn to freelance marketplaces like Upwork, Toptal or Crewscale to find and hire individual experts for one-time projects.
What is the timeline you’re looking for? Is it short-term, long-term or part-time engagement? Short term/long term/part time engagement
Depending on the time frame, your costs would change, so you’ll have to optimize for it. So it is equally important to consider for what duration you need devs. Are you looking to build a permanent team? Or is it just a quick, one-time project? Or maybe your dev team has a shortage of staff and you need to augment it temporarily? Too inquisitive, isn’t it?
Clarify your needs before, and look into sources and profiles accordingly. Remember that the cost of hiring and maintaining a team depends on the time frame: if you’re hiring long-term teams, it comes with the cost of offering additional benefits, plus severance. So, every purpose has its own payoffs, and you have to optimize for them.
Do you need an individual contributor or a team?
This might appear to be far too obvious of a question, but depends on a lot of factors- scale, intricacy, components. An employee who has a great attitude but lacks some of the skills you’re looking for is a lot more likely to learn those skills independently. But will that individual be enough alone to manage all the tasks? Figure out the requirements for your company before establishing expectations from them.
How much can you afford to/are willing to spend?
Do not skip this!
It is a very common rookie mistake. A budget estimate is a must ask question before you even think of hiring.
Better, more experienced or qualified devs come with bigger prices. So you have to take the call between hiring the best of the best or hiring someone you don’t have to burn your pockets for.
While price is directly proportional to experience, coding prowess isn’t necessarily. Although, a more experienced candidate can generally be more versatile, and can be very effective in seeing through various tasks in the process, even with ordinary coding skills. Payscale also differs with the domain of your product, and location of developers.
Your preferences
Also ask yourself what kind of a team you want to build, or whom do you want to do the task. It’s time to make comparative decisions in hopes of getting that “closer-to-a-100%” feeling.
Are you open to contractors/freelancers?
Building a full-time team can be beneficial, but if you’re not in a position to build a dedicated team for iOS development, it is better to look for contractors/freelancers. Hiring agencies may assist you in finding and hiring freelancers. Premium services may even pre-evaluate them for your needs, Crewscale and Toptal for instance.
Are you open to remote hiring?
Let’s face it, the remote era is here. If you are not at least considering building a remote team, you are giving up the opportunity to acquire talent boundless of geographical location. With that said, your requirements and constraints should be of utmost priority. If you can afford managing and coordinating people across time zones, working from home rather than in the workplace itself, you should consider hiring remote.
How would you source talent?
Where you source your developers from also matters. If your team is established, the most convenient way to obtain new hires is by referrals from old ones. However, if you’re just beginning hiring, or hiring remote, or looking for short-term employees, you might want to look into alternative modes of hiring. Online communities like GitHub, and social networks like LinkedIn are great places to look for hires.
Hiring freelancers and specialized professionals can be made easy by freelance services like Upwork, if you’re looking for devs in a short-term, one-off project. However, probably the best way to look for professionals is by premium talent acquisition services: Crewscale, Toptal, arc.dev etc. They do not only have a huge pipeline of developers, they have rigorous vetting and screening processes to get you just the hire you want.
Are you open to outsourcing/would outsourcing serve your purpose?
Many companies specialize in building apps, with specialized, experienced, and talented developers, designers. They can even provide you with servers, better outreach on the media as well as on the App Store itself. This might come in exchange with a cost. Not just monetary, but there can be claims on ownership or rights. If you want total autonomy over the product as well as the process, it is better to have an in-house team.
Tech knowledge
This is the set of questions most neglected before the hiring begins. It’s no surprise that it also leads to the greatest of hiring mistakes.
Can you handle hiring and managing tech teams all by yourself? Do you have the right approach? The right personnel? The right tools? If not, how can you get there quicker?
It’s simple.
Ask yourself these questions before you start your hiring journey.
Are you well-equipped to test technical skills?
First of all, if you are not a tech person, you probably should not be hiring techies yourself. If you can have a dedicated team for that purpose, that is ideal. Although if you can’t, you can turn to an online hiring service. They can provide you platforms to conduct interviews with experts, skill tests, and any other assessments as per your need. Again, that is if you are willing to pay for that.
Are you well-equipped to manage dev teams?
Team building does not end with hiring and onboarding. You need to manage effectively in order to have an efficient work environment. This is an even bigger challenge when you’re managing a remote team.
Tech knowledge or exposure may be necessary depending on the complexity or depth of knowledge building the product requires. If it works on complex algorithms and technologies, you should have a better grasp on them yourself. Apart from observation of the programming, such knowledge also helps you better delegate the work, and to better micromanage if needed.
If not, you might want intervention or support, in terms of project/product manager. Some premium agencies can provide you product managers, who are leaders in their fields such as Indiez.
Finally, IP and security are of utmost importance, even more so when you have a remote team. So strong systems and strict regulations should be placed to avoid leakage of confidential data.
