With the advancement of technology, coders are becoming increasingly important within every business.
All companies, whether they are small, medium, or large, require coders for a variety of purposes, whether it be for a website or for a mobile application.
This professional profile, however, has a more technical background. Because of this, hiring the right candidates when you are untrained or inexperienced in coding can be quite challenging.
Fortunately, there are supportive tools to make it easier.
If that applies to you, keep reading. This article will provide you with a guide on how to hire the best coders without any technical experience.
Now let’s get to the point.
1. Outline your project and consumer preferences
You should have a clear understanding of what you intend to accomplish and how you plan to do it before beginning the hiring process.
You must define, specify, and detail every aspect of your project.
In the process of outlining your project, you should also take the consumer’s preferences into account. These will influence how the project will be realized, what skills are needed, and what competencies you should look for when hiring.
You can find out consumer preferences
by using a tool like Attest, which allows you to share custom surveys and get insightful data back.
When you know your target audience’s preferences, you can define and adjust your project accordingly, ensuring that it matches them. This will increase the odds of developing a successful product.
Also, you might consider sharing the surveys with candidates and seeing if their preferences match those of the consumers.
2. Identify the type of coder you need to hire
There are many different specialties among coders. It is your duty to understand which of your business’s areas require coding experience.
Therefore, here are some types of coders you might be interested in hiring for your business:
- Web developer. A web developer creates and maintains websites. In addition, they are responsible for the site’s technical aspects, such as its performance.
- Front-End Developer. Front-end developers are the ones who build websites. Their responsibilities include designing, laying out, and displaying content on a website. Several front-end languages are used, but HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are the most popular.
- Back-End Developer. Back-end developers create and maintain the technologies that enable the user-facing side of a website to function.
- Mobile Developer. Mobile developers specialize in mobile technology such as building apps for Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS.
- Data Scientist. By combining software engineering, coding, statistics, and visualization, data scientists discover valuable insights from massive amounts of data. They use Python, SQL, R, and Java as programming languages.
3. Know the right coding skills to look for
If you have identified the type of coder your company needs, it is now time to discover and identify the specific programming and coding skills that a potential hire should possess.
Each type of coder possesses its own set of skills, expertise, and knowledge. As a result, you must be clear about what skills, experience, and competencies you’re seeking.
The following are some coding skills you might want to look for in a candidate:
- Coding language. HTML and CSS are two languages that every coder should be familiar with. However, depending on the work you need them to perform, other languages may be required. Mobile app developers, for instance, are usually well versed in Java.
- Analytical skills. It’s crucial in coding to be able to use logic and scientific methods to solve problems. When trying to find the source of errors, it is often necessary to collect, analyze, and interpret large amounts of unorganized data. Analytical skills are therefore essential when solving problems.
- Problem-solving. Coders should also be capable of maintaining anything they create and fixing any problems that arise. Consequently, problem-solving skills are an essential part of any coding role.
- Communication skills. Any job requires good communication skills. Communication is crucial for collaboration and to ensure any issues are communicated in a timely fashion.
4. Write an effective coding job description to attract the right applicants
It can be difficult to attract the best candidates. Nevertheless, writing an effective and compelling job description will certainly assist you in this endeavor.
Here are some tips to make your coding job description effective:
- Get the job title right. Don’t forget to include what kind of coder you’re looking for.
- Introduce your company. Give a brief overview of your company, its mission, and the most relevant accomplishments you’ve made so far.
- Include a short overview of the job. Provide a detailed description of who you’re searching for, why, and daily duties and responsibilities.
- Outline the competencies and experience you’re looking for. You should describe in detail the years of experience, the skills, and the competencies you expect the candidate to have.
- Include details on salary and benefits. You must include the salary you’re willing and able to offer, as well as any other related benefits.
5. Ask them to share their portfolio
Visualizing all the previous projects the candidates have worked on will surely help you understand whether they’re the right fit or inappropriate for your business and needs.
When visualizing their portfolio, you must pay attention or ask for some details such as:
- Clientele that they have handled (if they’re well established, in your industry, etc.)
- Aims of the project
- Whether the project has been developed individually or in a team
- Project completion time
- Problems encountered during realization
- Accomplished goals
6. Conduct coding assessment to ensure the applicants possess the desired skills
Once you’ve attracted sufficient applicants to your job listing and reviewed their applications and portfolios, you’re ready to shortlist them and select the most impressive ones.
As a next step in the hiring process, you might consider running some tests to determine if candidates possess the skills and competencies you are looking for. By doing this, you’ll be able to save time and effort by eliminating candidates who are unsuitable for the job you’re offering.
Today, there are websites that allow you to create or use pre-made tests, share them with candidates, and visualize the results.
TestGorilla, for example, provides you with many tests where you can choose, such as the laravel assessment, which will help you hire developers who know how to design, develop, and maintain applications using Laravel.
As soon as candidates complete the tests, the software will automatically rank them based on their results. Thus, you will be able to identify the candidates who recorded the highest score, allowing you to choose among the best.
7. Prepare in advance the questions you’ll ask during the interview
After you’ve selected the candidates with the highest scores, you’re ready to move forward with the hiring process. If you do not want to make them take a second assessment test, an interview would probably be the next step.
Given that you probably do not have any coding knowledge or experience, it would be best for you to prepare some questions in advance.
In this way, you wouldn’t appear unprepared when it comes time to interview. In addition, you should not exclusively focus on technical questions; soft skills are also extremely important in the workplace.
The following are some examples of questions you may want to ask coder candidates:
- What programming languages can you work with?
- Can you tell me about your favorite programming project?
- Are you comfortable working with a team of programmers to complete coding projects?
- What do you enjoy about programming?
- What’s your approach to solving a particularly tough issue or bug? What’s your reaction once it’s solved?
8. Consider involving other team members in the hiring process
Other team members can also assist you if you feel uncomfortable making a decision on who to hire alone.
Depending on the circumstances, you may choose to conduct a group interview or two interviews to allow other team members to verify and judge the candidates’ qualities and determine which candidate is a good fit for the company.
Making a unanimous decision after exchanging impressions with the other team members will definitely give you more confidence about hiring the right coder.
9. Consider putting in place pre-hire practical coding projects
Following an assessment test and interviews, there may be two candidates who are vying for the job. Both candidates have demonstrated excellent skills and attitudes.
In this case, if you’re still uncertain about making the right choice or undecided about hiring one or the other, you can take one more step before you decide.
For example, you might want to put the candidates through a practical test by giving them a real project, similar to the ones they will be working on during their employment.
Hire the coder who has the best performance in terms of completion time, results, and efficiency.
Conclusions
Coders play an essential role in almost every type of business. It doesn’t matter if you’re planning to build a website, mobile app, or any other technological project – programming and coding skills are necessary.
It can be quite challenging and time-consuming to find and hire the right coder without any technical knowledge or expertise. If you follow the tips embedded within this blog post, you will surely have no trouble hiring the perfect candidate.
I appreciate you taking the time to read this article. Hope it helped you.
If you want to read more on the topic, check out this article on how to build a successful web development team.
