How to recruit and hire great software developers

Against the traditional software developer recruitment strategy of asking your candidates to perform a programming challenge to assess their technical acumen, it is now equally important to be able to evaluate software developers’ soft skills.  

Soft skills are those skills that enable an employee to effectively achieve results in their role but are not related to their technical proficiency, these include communication, teamwork and creative thinking skills. Needless to say, they can be quite difficult to determine from a CV, cover letter and interview unless you know what you’re looking for! 

What to consider when recruiting and hiring software developers 

In a world where every hire counts, it is vitally important to assess each candidate’s soft skills just as much as their technical competencies to determine if they would not only fit in with your company or team culture, but thrive within it. Recruitment is no longer a quick fix to achieve bodies in seats, but a process to find the future leaders of the company.  

Find out how to tweak your recruitment strategy and find the best software developers that are going to enable your company to grow! 

Software developer recruitment process 

A good starting point for developing a recruitment process that seeks to bring to the fore your candidates’ soft skills is to consider which soft skills would best work within your existing development team. Do you need a highly-organised leader or someone with great collaborative skills? Is there an existing challenge with meeting deadlines and you would therefore benefit from a self-starter with great time management? 

Once you’ve identified the types of soft skills that would compliment and inspire your existing development team, you can then begin to examine your recruitment process and locate opportunities to try and attract those skills and characteristics.  

Ensuring they are included in your job description under ‘desirable skills’ is one way to ensure you’re clear about what you’re looking for, but when it comes to interviewing software developers – and interviewing any candidate really – it can be difficult to find tangible proof of those soft skills!

Identifying desirable software developer soft skills 

While a large portion of the interview should be dedicated to reviewing your candidates’ technical skills, dedicate at least five minutes to non-technical chat so that you can get some insight into what they’re like as a person. Finding out more about them personally will allow you to know more about what it might be like to work with them, if they’re honest, confident and professional where it counts.  

We’ve come up with some example questions you can use to evaluate your software developer candidates’ soft skills. 

Software developer interview questions to determine soft skills 

Over the course of your career, are there any specifically difficult situations that you’ve faced? How did you approach the issue? What went well and what didn’t work? How would you tackle the problem now?

What have you enjoyed most about software development over your career? What made you want to pursue it in the first place? Are there any aspects you don’t enjoy?

What are your greatest strengths you’d bring to this role? 

Where are you looking to improve most in the future?

How would your previous colleagues describe working with you? 

Ensuring you’ve found the right soft skills in your software developers 

If you’re concerned about finding the right person(s) to join your team, get in touch with a specialist software developer recruiter like IntaPeople. Our insight and experience in the tech and software development market means we know how to identify the right soft skills you need for your team, define where to attract them in your recruitment process, and analyse CVs, and give further tips and pointers to draw them out during the interview. 

Find out how we can help you create a recruitment strategy to meet your needs today and in the future!

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