Developer recruitment: how to attract the right candidates?

Today, having a website is often essential. Yet putting such a service in place requires technical skills over the long term. You see it, and you have the solution: you need to hire a developer.

There is, however, a wide variety of developer profiles, more or less specialized, and it can be hard to attract the best candidates. After all, many companies are looking for the same rare gem you are.

In this article, we walk you through the developer recruitment market and help you identify the most effective strategies for attracting the developer you need!

The tech recruitment market in France

A market under pressure

You've probably noticed that hiring tech profiles is particularly tough. The developer recruitment market in France is upside-down: it's the recruiters who contact the candidates! And for good reason, job offers are very plentiful on the labor market. In 2022, that's 20 offers for every 1 candidate. It's also one of the rare sectors where demand has continued to grow during the health and economic crises.

Yet the number of qualified candidates is limited. While many people have the technical skills for web development, only 5% of them are looking for a job, according to a survey by Stack Overflow in 2022 of 70,000 developers. And this situation isn't about to improve, despite the development of new programming-language training programs.

Finally, it's hard to find the right candidates, meaning those with the right skills. Moreover, web developers often train themselves and have a relatively short experience. So it's hard to evaluate their ability to meet your needs.

The most sought-after skills

The skills required for these candidate profiles are therefore primarily technical: the web developer, or programmer, must be able to build web applications. Depending on their specialization, we speak of:

• front-end developer, if they build what is visible to the client
• back-end developer, if they handle what isn't visible (servers, link with databases),
• full-stack developer, if they do both.

To deliver this kind of project, a developer must master several programming languages. Depending on company needs, HR trends focus on candidates who can use Python, Java, C#, HTML, or JavaScript.

Finally, several soft skills are particularly sought after, notably autonomy and the ability to understand and translate the rest of the team's needs into code. It's also important that the developer be able to train themselves to update their knowledge and keep up with the sector's rapid evolutions.

Which organizations hire developers?

To position yourself as a developer recruiter, you have to inform yourself about your competition and put in place recruitment techniques suited to your goal.

The majority of job offers come from large organizations or web agencies. Indeed, more than half of companies with more than 250 employees still don't have a website. So they hire developers to fill that gap.

Startups, especially in digital, are also in heavy demand for developers. For these companies, having a site is a prerequisite for launching the business. That said, several tools and services today let you create a site without any technical knowledge, which partially reduces this need for qualified tech staff.

Finally, your main competitor is the developer themselves! They have the option of operating as an independent, which lets them work autonomously and, often, earn higher revenue. So 10% of Stack Overflow survey respondents are in this situation today.

Strategies to attract the best developers

To attract developer candidates, you have to highlight your strengths and the things they could benefit from by working with you.

Offer quality projects

The most important thing for a web developer remains the content of a project. Since they have many offers at their disposal, they pick the most enticing. So it's up to you to offer the most interesting missions!

Moreover, it's essential to give candidates relative autonomy on their project. What can make your mission more attractive is the ability to take initiative and keep their independence.

Pros: emphasizing autonomous, quality projects ensures they'll be properly understood and delivered, without you having to step in!

Cons: this strategy requires you to be able to translate your problems into technical language, which can be tricky. To help you, we have set up an IT Culture training program that teaches you to translate your needs into the technical job's language.

Offer growth perspectives

To do their job, a developer has to stay current and keep up with the latest tech evolutions. So give them the opportunity to train and build new knowledge by offering relevant, quality training programs.

You can also emphasize career perspectives within your company — something the developer doesn't necessarily have access to, since only 15% of Stack Overflow survey respondents have managerial functions. So highlighting the possible career growth and potential management roles could help you attract the best candidates.

Pros: training your developers is 100% beneficial for your business! What's more, a developer in a management role can help you select future tech hires.

Cons: these positions and career perspectives don't necessarily appeal to every tech profile, who sometimes prefer to work alone.

Offer a good work environment

Another strategy is to put in place a quality work environment. That translates into material conditions like office design, but also the skills of the leadership team, who must listen and champion autonomy. You can also put in place a flexible setup, easing remote work for example.

When they're employees, developers benefit from social benefits. To recruit the best developers, improve your offer on this front. With this kind of job, for example, it's hard to disconnect. The right to disconnect must be one of the arguments of your recruitment method.

Don't hesitate to highlight the work-life balance you offer your employees and to guarantee long paid leave for your future developer.

Pros: improving your employees' environment is beneficial for your employer brand!

Cons: this strategy requires you to adapt to how developers work and to offer them costly benefits, like higher compensation.

How to differentiate yourself to attract the best developers?

To stand out from competing recruiters, don't neglect these last aspects.

Speak the developer's language

A recent trend in the recruitment process consists of sending many messages to developers on LinkedIn and being surprised that they aren't "open to the market." On reflection, maybe you're the one who isn't.

Indeed, developers receive many offers ill-suited to their skills. If you've properly defined the profile you're looking for and the programming languages you need, you'll be able to save time and energy by targeting candidates who can be interested in your offer.

To talk with these candidates and approach them, it's also important to speak their language. So we invite you to familiarize yourself with their language so you can more easily evaluate their skills. To build a credible, relatable pitch that will attract the best developers, you can join our 2-day IT Culture lightning training for recruiters!

Work on your employer brand

The employer brand corresponds to your company's brand image and the values associated with it. To improve it, it happens on social networks, especially LinkedIn, notably by posting regularly. To attract developers specifically, it can also be relevant to be present on code-sharing platforms, like GitHub, Stack, or Reddit.

Your brand image must also match dimensions valued by developers, such as the freedom of initiative or knowledge sharing. Also show that you follow trends and are open to innovation.

The goal of this strategy is to value developers in their work, so they want to join you. It also lets you make sure you have candidates who share your values and motivations and preserve your company culture.

Call on recruitment firms

To cut the grass under other recruiters' feet, you can also directly approach the developers who interest you. You should, however, only contact profiles that match your specific technical needs.

To avoid disturbing developers who aren't looking for permanent or freelance opportunities, you can use specific platforms, like We Love Dev or the Bluecoders recruitment service.

Finally, also tap into developer communities. They share their work on the GitHub, Stack, and Reddit platforms mentioned earlier. This requires some tech knowledge, but you can follow developers' work there and approach those who match your needs.