
Ask HN: Clever Recruiting Techniques? - jack7890
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.<p>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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andrewstuart
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.

~~~
dsplittgerber
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.

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enry_straker
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.

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buro9
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.

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frisco
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.

~~~
andrewgodwin
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.

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

~~~
andrewstuart
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.

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parbo
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://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://contest.scrool.se/)

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.

~~~
sunkencity
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.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
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.

~~~
sunkencity
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.

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tomjen3
We can't really help you much unless tell us how you define qualified.

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imwilsonxu
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 :)

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kqueue
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.

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woan
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...

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fizx
You could always pay more.

~~~
philk
I'm not sure "spend more money" constitutes a _clever_ idea.

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wazoox
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.

~~~
pvg
_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')

~~~
wazoox
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 :)

~~~
adw
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...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/sep/22/timetric-financial-
times-simon-briscoe)

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.

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amorphid
You have discovered why recruiters exist.

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adsahay
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.

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newyorker
How about job fairs? Social media?

~~~
zumda
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.

~~~
newyorker
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!

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zackattack
how technically strong is your CTO?

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

