Your Guide to Technical Staffing

When it comes to finding technology professionals, hiring can be difficult. Not only are technology experts in high demand, but how does a hiring manager know they’ve selected the right candidate?

Recruiters may look for degrees in computer science of software engineering, or other certifications that can support their level of expertise. On-the-job training also contributes to a candidates capabilities. These additional steps will help you separate the super stars from the rest:

1. Test for communication
2. Test with a technology problem
3. Test their code

In the workplace, communication is key. With the workforce turning into a mix of employee and freelance and office and remote workers, it’s important to ensure the person you hire has strong communication skills. Whether they’re a software engineering, software project manager, or a scrum master, being able to communicate with the team is crucial to keep the business running efficiently. Test the candidates communication style not only with the hiring manager, but with leaders in other departments they may interface with.

Perhaps the hardest quality to test for is talent. Having a candidate work on a real life problem they could encounter at the company will show their problem solving process, how they think through solutions, as well as their technical aptitude.

Similar to testing for a technology problem, positions requiring coding should be evaluated. Messy or badly written code leads too many issues, therefore having someone review the code is highly important.

Often a hiring manager is filling a position they’ve never done themselves. This challenge is common, and often leads to companies selecting candidates that may not be the most qualified. While this may not impact the company on a large scale, it could cost the company thousands of dollars over time due to an employee that can’t deliver solutions at the level needed, wasting hours on solutions.

If your company needs to hire top talent and wants the peace of mind knowing they’re hiring the right candidate, look for a vendor that can help fill the gaps. Specialized staffing firms will individually test all technical candidates before sharing them with clients. This significantly cuts down on the need to test for required technology skills, whether it’s programming in Java or Python, or how to manage AWS.