Three outside of the box ways to bolster your recruiting efforts for Product & Engineering roles

Three outside of the box ways to bolster your recruiting efforts for Product & Engineering roles

The ideas below are predicated on the belief that good developers know other good developers. Whether it was someone they worked with at a previous company or a person they know through mutual friends, leveraging those relationships will always be one of the best ways to bring quality talent to your organization.?

So, what do you do when the tried and true?referral bonus?method no longer seems to be cutting it? Here are some ways to help up the level of incentivization.?

Develop true ownership of the product and projects

Before trying anything crazy, it is a good idea to start with a foundational step.?

When splitting up the Product into manageable projects, it is best to label a Product Team Lead and Engineering Team Lead for each project. This is likely already in place at your organization but it could probably be tweaked just a bit.?

Give your more junior folks a larger role in each aspect of the project and tie their commitments back to the larger product that is being built. When reviewing commits, also review the open headcount for this particular product or project and reiterate that the workload would be lessened if the team were larger. When a team is working collectively toward a goal but continually missing their mark, they will inevitably work through ways to achieve that goal. If they are aware of the open seats on the team then part of their strategy will be to find someone qualified to take on some of the workload.?

The takeaway here is to foster ownership with each individual no matter skill or rank and to continually discuss headcount gaps. A team hungry to execute on their objectives will always find a way and that way may just be doing some outreach to convince quality people to join your mission.?

Provide budget to your team members

The road to wooing highly qualified Product and Engineering talent is long, arduous and costly, but what if your people had a monthly budget to leave their homes and meet up with fellow devs? Would that be an extra cost or would it bring down the total cost of recruiting and reduce the somewhat immeasurable cost of not having open developer seats filled?

A few years back I met with a lawyer from a prestigious law firm in Chicago for lunch. We had a great conversation and when the bill came she paid for it with her company credit card. She then went on to explain that she has a monthly budget for lunches, dinners, events, etc. to help her grow her network and the firm’s overall reach.?

The key things that stuck out from this approach were that the firm trusts this employee, she is incentivized to grow her network, and there is a positive perception of this company that people will have when their lunch or dinner meetings come to a close.

There is a case to be made to provide team members with a monthly budget or stipend for lunches, dinners, and events with people from the developer community. This is a differentiator that will set your organization apart from the rest of the pack and it will enhance your team’s perception of the culture you are trying to create.?

When putting a budget program together, you will want to consider the amount of budget each employee should receive, how they will submit the expenses, and determine a way to track the outcomes achieved from implementing the program.?

Host a hackathon and invite devs from outside your organization to participate

If you build it, they will come. If you host it with a great prize, they will build.?

The opportunity to test out skills and the possibility to make some extra money is an experience that most developers appreciate. It is also a wonderful way to see potential candidates in action and open up the door for a deeper recruiting conversation. While the specifics of setting up a top notch hackathon event AND getting the word out about it can be tough to work out, it will be a great exercise for your HR, Operations, and Product and Engineering Leadership to partner together on.?

The best first steps are to give someone the lead on executing the event, determine a total budget including prize money, and choose a date for the event to happen. Once those things are set, there is a wide world of details that can be hammered out. The outcome will be great exposure to the developer community and your team will likely have a lot of fun with it. You may just land those candidates you were looking for all along as well.?

Final thoughts

Each strategy discussed above is more cost intensive than the last, but these should not be attempted until there is a good foundation in your Product & Engineering organization. The core team and culture should be solid before trying to fix any recruiting challenges by adding events or meal budgets.?

It is also critical to always be recruiting online since people are constantly looking to level up their careers. While the numbers don’t lie that there are many more jobs than qualified candidates, it is important to remember that people will not be aware of your opportunities if they are not displayed on job boards. The cost to continually post is minimal compared to the cost of losing out on a potential candidate who is searching when your job post is not live. Always be recruiting!

If you’d like to receive more recruiting thoughts from us at?Devwork.Careers?or provide some feedback to us please?fill out this form here.?