8 Powerful Tips To Recruit and Retain Developers in 2022

According to a study by Forbes, there are not enough skilled developers around the world and what is even worse is that the skill shortage in them will only increase by 2030. That means that you will have to pay more attention to what kind of developers you are hiring, not only that, but you’ll need to focus on retaining the right talent once you employ them.

Well, for every problem, there is a solution. So, don’t go anywhere because, in this article, we are about to find out the eight most powerful tips you can use to recruit and retain the right recruiters in 2022.

Let’s dive right in!

8 Tips for Recruiting and Retaining Developers 

1.    Offer employee wellbeing initiatives

Employee wellbeing includes the overall mental health and happiness of an employee at the workplace. When a company prioritizes this, they are more likely to have a better experience at the workplace and have less stress.

Several factors can affect the well-being of an employee:

• Emotional health
• Social wellbeing
• Financial health
• Physical health

Especially when hiring developers, from time to time, they can be under extensive psychological stress, and being there to enhance their well-being direct affects your long-term relationships with them. After all, you want your employees to be at the top of their game and not unhappy when dealing with you and your business.

2. Use corporate engagement software

Corporate engagement software is an excellent method of retaining quality employees in the long term; this accounts for great hires you make with developers. In fact. 16% of companies are using corporate engagement software in order to monitor employee engagement rates.

There are several corporate engagement software you can use, here are some we recommend for you:

• Alaya
• SnackNation
• BambooHR
• Motivosity
• Kazoo

Corporate engagement software helps companies understand how their workplace satisfaction and level of engagement are heading. Moreover, choosing the right software for you will help you do the following:

• Collecting quality employee feedback
• Setting and tracking goals
• Employee recognition
• Employee satisfaction

Overall, these types of software enhance employee retention and engagement levels. What does that mean? It means that the developers you are going to hire will perform better at the workplace and feel more comfortable working for you.

3. Use a Pre-employment Microsoft Word Test

If you don’t know how to assess your candidates, use a pre-employment Word test. Microsoft Word tests evaluate the candidate’s ability to use Word from a business perspective. If you are hiring developers and are concerned about their level of knowledge regarding Word, then this is an excellent method to use when hiring.

Some key tasks include:

• Using images, graphs, tables, page numbers, and more
• Using editing tools in MS Word
• Using page layout features and formatting
• Saving, protecting, closing, and opening a document

4.  Give your team personal development opportunities

According to a survey conducted by LinkedIn, over 90% of employees claimed that they would be more motivated and stay longer at a workplace if the company invested more in their personal and professional career development opportunities.

Especially when dealing with developers, companies that fail to provide development opportunities will either lose these developers in the future or have outdated ones.

Roughly 80% of employers claimed that they couldn’t find candidates with the skills they were looking for. Hence, many companies are well aware of this, and they are turning to internal training as an alternative to this. After all, it’s better to train employees who want to grow instead of refusing them.

However, to have a successful training program, companies need to have an expert in the team. In this case, you are looking for a developer, so you need a unique senior developer in your team who can teach newcomers how to upgrade their personal and professional skills.

Above all, the company needs to be goal-oriented as well. Companies that aren’t most likely won’t provide the proper training.

5.  Offer more than your competitors

Your competitor is closer to following your next steps than you think. Especially during the hiring and the massive issue with a skill shortage in the tech industry, offering more than your competitors is more than a good idea.

In what terms do we mean to offer more? Well, it can be in many ways. Some include:

• Salary range
• Employee benefit package
• Flexible working hours
• Remote working and on-site
• Internal training
• Memberships and more

Developers, especially those who are more skilled, will pay lots of attention to the benefits and salary ranges they are receiving from a company. So, this is your chance to take advantage of your hiring strategy.

6. Improve your onboarding process

As a recruiter, you can lose more time than you think while hiring a new employee. It may take a month or two, or maybe less; it’s difficult to predict. However, losing a new employee only comes to show you that your onboarding process isn’t good.

According to SHRM, more than 75% of workplaces aren’t actually making their new hires the right way, and less than 50% believe that their onboarding process is a good one. Additionally, companies with no onboarding process have a lower level of productivity and a higher employee turnover rate.

How can you improve your onboarding process? 

Successful onboarding processes include the level of excitement employees get when they start a new job and minimize the challenges they face.

For example, whenever a new employee starts a new job, they might face challenges like frustrations and thoughts that they might not be the right fit, leading to un-unnecessary stress. When you minimize these feelings, your onboarding process only becomes better.

7. Show appreciation

Source

59% of employees claim that their managers don’t appreciate their work. Moreover, this is a top reason why employees will either leave their job or not perform well at work. To solve this problem, most companies are incorporating employee recognition programs in order to recognize all employees who contribute to their workplace.

However, don’t be fooled that appreciation is only shown with words. Many things are included when it comes to showing appreciation for your employees. This includes that the team members respect one another and that your company’s vision and goals match the employees’ career goals. After all, if you both don’t fit, it isn’t a successful hire.

8. Write a good job description

Last but not least, our final tip is to focus on writing a good job description. Job descriptions will let candidates know if they are the right fit for your company. In this case, it includes developers who can read your job description and see if they have the necessary skills you are asking for and if they see a future in your company.

Job descriptions should include the following:

• Your company’s mission, vision, and goals
• What the job position is about
• Job requirements
• What you offer
• Salary range
• University degree requirements (if you require it)
• What kind of opportunities you will offer

If you have a hard time writing or setting up a job description from scratch, you can always seek to use templates. LinkedIn offers excellent templates you can use and then directly post them on their social network.

Furthermore, when you write a job description, don’t forget to include the salary range as developers will pay great attention. Especially knowing the fact that there is a skill shortage.

In A Nutshell

Well, that’s about it for this article. These were out eight tips on how to recruit and retain developers. Hopefully, you now have some fresh ideas on how you can recruit the right developers for the long term.

Don’t forget that no matter how skilled a developer is, many factors will vary, and mostly how they match with your business values and goals that you have established.

That’s why we recommend you take some time and carefully read through each of the tips that we have stated and see how they can match with your business.

After all, you don’t want to be a company that is hiring people every time and not being able to hire the right people. Hiring costs time and money, so it’s important you try to get it right the first time and don’t spend too much time on it. Put all your effort into it and see who is the right fit for you and if you are the right fit for the person you are hiring!

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