Recently, I’ve become very busy due to taking over tasks from another site. The original coding work is still there, so I started looking for an outstanding developer to join us. In the first month, I tried to draw from my colleagues’ and my own networks — but in vain. Now I’ve shifted the search to a headhunter and started conducting interviews.
I’ve interviewed a lot of people at my first and second jobs. Interviewing candidates through a headhunter is a very different experience. Why? Many factors influence what kind of developer you’re actually looking for.
Take my first job as an example: the company didn’t want to pay much for experienced engineers due to uncertainty and a poor historical track record. So we preferred to hire fresh graduates. The strategy was simpler: first, check the academic record to see if they’d been doing their student responsibilities well. Second, give an aptitude test to assess logic, patience, etc. Based on the results, we’d also talk with them on various topics to gauge attitude, communication, expression — and most importantly, potential. Add it all up and you could make a reasonable judgment. Much easier and simpler, right?
Now, back to my current experience. We are looking for someone very experienced and excellent. No academic record or aptitude test. Instead, we have to judge the body of work they’ve built across their career. Headhunters should in theory filter resumes for you, but some headhunters are like real estate agents — quantity over quality. So we still have to work hard to gather information from multiple channels, to make sure the applicants are who we think they are.
Beyond that, I’ve had to design different kinds of assessment tasks — 30-minute coding challenges, difficult technical questions, etc. It’s become far more complex to judge whether someone is truly a fit, because we don’t have the luxury of time to try someone like with a rookie hire. It’s challenging and interesting. Here’s hoping we find our “Rambo” soon.
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