6 ms·

Speaking as someone who has done a little hiring (i.e. authorized to hire two more people for my team at BigCorp) the answer is "All of them". I'm not being f

by Sukotto 13y ago

Speaking as someone who has done a little hiring (i.e. authorized to hire two more people for my team at BigCorp) the answer is "All of them". I'm not being facetious, I seriously mean that. The skilled people you want are a scarce resource in a world of high demand. The recruiters shotgun anyone whose resume buzzword-matches at least 25% of the job posting. It just sucks. Imho, your best bet is to develop relationships with the sorts of people you wish you could hire and offer them something interesting when you hear they're considering a move.

mavdi 13y ago
This. We find it hard to find skilled developers across all the languages we need. The good ones are all hired and highly paid.
- logfromblammo 13y ago
  It sounds to me as though they are not actually hard to find. You're just looking in the wrong place and not allocating enough funds for salary. If you can't compete on money, you can probably compensate with time instead. A 30 hour work week with liberal personnel policies would be very attractive to someone who likely already earns more than "enough", and probably spends a lot of time padding out hours by just looking busy anyway. There are a lot of people out there who are working a job they dislike because the job search routine is even worse. Find the company no one likes to work for and actively recruit their dissatisfied employees.
humanrebar 13y ago
> Imho, your best bet is to develop relationships with the sorts of people you wish you could hire and offer them something interesting when you hear they're considering a move. A great way to do this is to 1) contribute back to open source projects on a regular basis and 2) send your talent out to conferences. Companies spend tons of cash marketing their products and won't spend relative peanuts on showing off their top talent and technical achievements to the wider developer community.
mrweasel 13y ago
We're currently trying to hire one or two people in Aalborg, Denmark. Getting anyone with skills beyond C# or Java for a smallish company is next to impossible. We're looking for Python and/or Javascript skills, preferably working knowledge of Unix. We've gotten may one real application, it's strikes me as a bit strange, I would have loved to have had open positions like ours when I graduated. An open position in bookkeeping or warehousing however will get us 300+ applications. Skilled software developer ( and yes you can be newly graduated ) will get us nothing. So yes, I would agree with: "All of them", there aren't enough people to go around currently.
- rfnslyr 13y ago
  I'm in Canada but I'd be willing to relocate in a heartbeat if what you say is true.
- Sukotto 13y ago
  In case you weren't aware, one place to post python jobs is http://www.python.org/community/jobs/ http://www.python.org/community/jobs/ If you don't live in a tech-heavy region, you should also consider hiring someone remote. https://weworkremotely.com/ https://weworkremotely.com/ is one board that seems popular (operated by the 37 signals guys iirc).
- eyko 13y ago
  Try offering the position to remote workers (within a reasonable distance... in your case, somewhere in Europe where there would be no more than +/- 2 hours of timezone difference).
  - mrweasel 13y ago
    We're not interested in remote workers. We not a software company and the jobs require almost daily interaction with non-developer colleagues (sales team, buyers, marketing, warehouse, accounting).
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  >> "Skilled software developer ( and yes you can be newly graduated ) will get us nothing" Maybe that's the problem. I'm a freelancer but anytime I've thought about applying for a full-time software developer position I get put off by words like 'skilled', 'senior', and a list of technologies the person needs to know that no single developer in the world knows. I've been coding for about 8 years, professionally for 5 and I consider myself a good programmer. But I don't know if I fit your definition of skilled or someone else's definition of senior as those are both too subjective. It puts me off applying mainly because I don't want to embarrass myself. Edit: I think a good way to hire would be a short coding test a person can take online BEFORE applying. If they pass they know they are skilled enough to apply for the position, if not they don't get laughed out of the room.
tomrod 13y ago
I agree. I find community meet ups are a great way to find skilled people in specific areas. I've not done much hiring myself (finishing graduate school) but I've done this to find local skill in big data.

by Sukotto 13y ago

mavdi 13y ago

This. We find it hard to find skilled developers across all the languages we need. The good ones are all hired and highly paid.

logfromblammo 13y ago
It sounds to me as though they are not actually hard to find. You're just looking in the wrong place and not allocating enough funds for salary. If you can't compete on money, you can probably compensate with time instead. A 30 hour work week with liberal personnel policies would be very attractive to someone who likely already earns more than "enough", and probably spends a lot of time padding out hours by just looking busy anyway. There are a lot of people out there who are working a job they dislike because the job search routine is even worse. Find the company no one likes to work for and actively recruit their dissatisfied employees.

humanrebar 13y ago

> Imho, your best bet is to develop relationships with the sorts of people you wish you could hire and offer them something interesting when you hear they're considering a move. A great way to do this is to 1) contribute back to open source projects on a regular basis and 2) send your talent out to conferences. Companies spend tons of cash marketing their products and won't spend relative peanuts on showing off their top talent and technical achievements to the wider developer community.

mrweasel 13y ago

We're currently trying to hire one or two people in Aalborg, Denmark. Getting anyone with skills beyond C# or Java for a smallish company is next to impossible. We're looking for Python and/or Javascript skills, preferably working knowledge of Unix. We've gotten may one real application, it's strikes me as a bit strange, I would have loved to have had open positions like ours when I graduated. An open position in bookkeeping or warehousing however will get us 300+ applications. Skilled software developer ( and yes you can be newly graduated ) will get us nothing. So yes, I would agree with: "All of them", there aren't enough people to go around currently.

rfnslyr 13y ago
I'm in Canada but I'd be willing to relocate in a heartbeat if what you say is true.
Sukotto 13y ago
In case you weren't aware, one place to post python jobs is http://www.python.org/community/jobs/ http://www.python.org/community/jobs/ If you don't live in a tech-heavy region, you should also consider hiring someone remote. https://weworkremotely.com/ https://weworkremotely.com/ is one board that seems popular (operated by the 37 signals guys iirc).
eyko 13y ago
Try offering the position to remote workers (within a reasonable distance... in your case, somewhere in Europe where there would be no more than +/- 2 hours of timezone difference).
- mrweasel 13y ago
  We're not interested in remote workers. We not a software company and the jobs require almost daily interaction with non-developer colleagues (sales team, buyers, marketing, warehouse, accounting).
k-mcgrady 13y ago
>> "Skilled software developer ( and yes you can be newly graduated ) will get us nothing" Maybe that's the problem. I'm a freelancer but anytime I've thought about applying for a full-time software developer position I get put off by words like 'skilled', 'senior', and a list of technologies the person needs to know that no single developer in the world knows. I've been coding for about 8 years, professionally for 5 and I consider myself a good programmer. But I don't know if I fit your definition of skilled or someone else's definition of senior as those are both too subjective. It puts me off applying mainly because I don't want to embarrass myself. Edit: I think a good way to hire would be a short coding test a person can take online BEFORE applying. If they pass they know they are skilled enough to apply for the position, if not they don't get laughed out of the room.

tomrod 13y ago

I agree. I find community meet ups are a great way to find skilled people in specific areas. I've not done much hiring myself (finishing graduate school) but I've done this to find local skill in big data.