How to become the developer every IT recruiter is fighting over

Developer, are you dragging your feet to work? Hunting for the ideal job? Then take a look at recruiting agencies! Why? Because their job is to find their clients the best developers. Strategically, that means they should be picking the best projects at the best companies. But to land that wanted job at a company where you actually enjoy spending your days, your technical chops alone may not be enough!

1. Take a look at recruiting agencies

What makes a great developer

Skills

To get hired, a developer obviously has to meet certain technical requirements and may be assessed more or less favorably depending on their background.

Technically, more than being someone who has perfectly mastered their stack, the great developer is the one who truly understands it — there's a difference. Understanding it means knowing how it will best serve a project, more so than another option. Which raises the question: which is more valued, the generalist profile or the specialist? Answer: both! Specializing in a go-to technology is great, but staying open to others to understand them, their differences, their relationships, etc., is even better.

What also genuinely sets two similar profiles apart is having worked with peers stronger than you, like a lead dev, for example. Lastly, technical professionalism is highly sought after: documenting your code so someone else can pick it up later is, sadly, far from a universal habit (including among the fastest coders).

In short, the developer everyone wants is someone in growth mode rather than show-off mode, with a pragmatic, adaptable mindset.

When you look at backgrounds, the most highly valued profiles have a solid initial IT foundation: engineering schools remain the gold standard for many companies, ahead of strong self-taught developers — recognizable by their constant tech watch, their personal or open-source projects, and often their abundant creativity.

For a CV that wins recruiters over:

2. Showing your skill level by tech on a 5-star scale is a good idea.

3. Organizing your skills by domain (frameworks / libraries / languages / systems) too.

Personal qualities

"The more you know, the more you realize you don't know."

Some developers know "all" the main doors into code and can start to feel like they have the full technical landscape figured out. Except in computing, every door you open reveals 10 more behind it. The truly great developer notices this, which only fuels their humility.

In fact, truly great developers are often deeply curious by nature — people who one day discovered computing and made it their honey pot when they realized they could finally satisfy their curiosity with just a $200 computer they already had at home.

In short, they're passionate. And passion shapes attitude in a positive way — and attitude matters almost as much as the skill set itself. Cowboy "I'm the best" attitudes are less authentic and far less helpful when it comes to getting hired and integrating well into a team.

The recruiter / developer relationship = the developer / dream-job relationship

Cooperation

The talent that easily lands permanent roles are those who want to find a job at least as much as their recruiter does (the most engaged ones).

In practice, they ask questions about the company, the tech stack, the way of working, and so on. One of the keys to getting hired? Be active in your search, proactive in your approach, and responsive with your recruiter.

4. Being responsive = being available ≃ being transparent about your availability: rather than not replying or declining a meeting, share when you are available.

Once contact is made, developers, don't be afraid to talk! #LongFormOK Recruiters want to know everything about you because matching your profile to a job that energizes you day-to-day takes more than a CV and a job description #tailored. Since companies need talent, they open up more readily — but what's the point if there's little visibility into a candidate's profile? Develop your answers, don't be afraid to share too much. Recruiters don't have hidden agendas about the information you share — they're just doing their job. And if it's a GOOD recruiter, they won't stop at your years of experience, your graduation date, the geography of your search, the kind of work environment you want, your minimum salary, the number of techs you know, or your skill level — they'll want to actually get to know you (at least a little).

5. Applying to every job posted on a site is a bad idea.

To deliver quality information, you also have to know what you want. If that's not obvious, you can learn to ask yourself the right questions (lean on the recruiter to help you with that #angel). For example, "What is it about my career path that makes this job a logical fit?" Know what role you're aiming for, which technologies you want to work on, which methodologies you want to develop in, where, and for how much — and you'll already be off to a great start.

Good attitudes

A great recruiter will help you reach the job of your dreams, but you always have a card to play to make their work easier. You can research the company, prepare questions in advance, and never forget to give feedback to the recruiter and the company after interviews. A highly available candidate who keeps their recruiter informed at every stage of the process may well get picked over a more technically skilled profile, because they show a reassuring reliability for the company (especially if they fit the culture).

The best move a candidate can make before joining a company (or in the lead-up to an interview) is to put their skills on display before day one. They can check the company's website to see if there's anything to comment on in their area of expertise. For example, a candidate once showed up to an interview with a USB stick containing a mini project using the same tech stack as the company, after the recruiter had walked them through it.

Finally, companies are also more inclined to hire a candidate who genuinely wants to be part of an adventure or to be a meaningful contributor at the company. Honesty matters too. Rather than saying "I want to take part in the explosion of a startup" like everyone else, go with "I want to build my own project but I need to grow on X and Y, and I know my time here will be valuable for both of us." If you're upfront, no one will doubt you.

Beyond hiring

The perfect developer is the one who truly knows their value on the market, who has a network (let's be honest), but also and above all someone the recruiter can grab a drink with — someone they can share more than recruiting with, talk shop about the hot companies and technologies, someone they can actually build a real human partnership with.

In the end, the developer understands the recruiter's craft, so they trust them and listen, even if they aren't the only one offering them a job. After all, recruiters have an excellent grasp of the market and can place pretty much anyone in it.

There are plenty of jobs in IT, but there are also plenty of jobs that aren't very challenging. Companies that genuinely cherish their tech teams are not 100,000 in number. If you're a great developer, you can return a recruiter's call telling them you're too solicited — but you can also tell yourself that, faced with a great dev, a great recruiter will offer a great job.