How Fast Can You Hire a Top Developer? 5 Tips to Speed Up the Time-to-Hire

In the world of “remote first” career opportunities, finding a top-notch developer should be a no-brainer. Because you’re no longer limited to a local talent pool, chances are you will find a suitable candidate much faster.

But once it comes to top-class specialists, the hunting process turns into a long-run game. Top developers are in big demand, so once their LinkedIn status changes to “open to work”, their DMs get instantly flooded with enticing job offers.

The more options are available to candidates - the more selective they will be about the role, project, salary range, etc. And although recruiters work hard to win the hearts of top-notch devs, finding a perfect match from both sides is a big challenge.

At that point, you may need to have an understanding of the time that takes to recruit a top specialist to your team. How long will it take to find & hire a remote developer? Is it 2 weeks or 2 months? And last (but not least), how can you speed up the time-to-hire?

Table of Contents:

1. How long does it take to Hire a Software Developer?

2. Why Is Time-to-Hire Important in Tech?

3. How to Increase Time-To-Hire When Hiring Devs?

4. Conclusion

How Long Does It Take to Hire a Software Developer?

Statistics prove that the tech industry has one of the longest time-to-hire periods.

The Workable study states it takes approximately 56 days to hire an IT specialist on a global level. For US companies, hiring a tech specialist takes 66 days, as stated by the 2019 iCIMS, Inc report. The same study reveals that software developers are “the most sought-after tech position” in the industry, and the time-to-hire for this position expands to 81 days instead of 66 (2016).

Why Is Time-to-Hire Important in Tech?

One of the crucial metrics for measuring recruiting efficiency is the time-to-hire - a universal HR metric that summarizes the time it takes to hire an employee.

To calculate the time-to-hire, you subtract the day a candidate applied to a position from the day a candidate accepts an offer. For instance, a candidate accepted a job offer on Dec 1 while the date they first applied to a position was Nov 1. This makes 31 days of the time-to-hire.

The main reason why companies should track the time-to-hire is that it gives them more control of the recruiting process and how fast candidates go through all recruitment stages. By experimenting with new recruitment methods, you can figure out the fastest way to vet the best candidates and not waste any extra time.

If the hiring process takes too long, it will likely affect the employer’s revenue and its brand. The longer the team lacks a valuable specialist, the more likely other employees will need to take up extra work or perform with less efficiency. Sooner or later, it may lead to job dissatisfaction and demotivation among all team members.

How to Increase Time-To-Hire When Hiring Devs?

Now that you know the perks of an optimized time-to-hire, you’d want to know the steps it takes to hire a software developer faster and more efficiently.

Set Your Goals & Priorities

One of the first and most important things that impacts your time-to-hire quality is knowing your goals & priorities. Who is the perfect developer for your company? What problem are you going to solve when hiring a new tech talent?

Knowing your priorities will help you come up with the future requirements for your perfect candidate. For example, “big players” with a reputation on the market may only hire an expert developer with many years of experience. On the other hand, some beginner companies/startups might be looking for fresh talents able to train and grow within the project.

Read also: How to Find, Hire and Retain Top-Level Remote Talents?

Although you may already have a certain understanding of your candidate preferences, make sure this list includes the next points:

1. What degrees/education will be mandatory for a particular tech position?

2. How many years of tech experience is acceptable to you as an employer?

3. What is the mandatory skillset (hard & soft)?

4. Is it mandatory for a developer to speak your native language? Or English works fine?

5. What career perspectives can you offer to a developer?

6. What is your acceptable salary range?

7. When do you need your new candidate to start working? Are you able to give a new hire time to adjust to a new job?

Build a Talent Pipeline

The talent acquisition process gets overly competitive in tech, so in order to find the best talents, you better be prepared beforehand.

Building a talent pipeline is exactly what smart recruiters do before they even need to open a job vacancy. Talent pipelines are a group of vetted candidates, whom you are ready to hire for your potential (developer) job openings. So whenever the vacancy is open, recruiters can already reach suitable candidates from the list and let them accept an offer right away.

The given candidates will correspond to your must-have requirements, so you don’t need to spend extra time screening their skills and expertise.

Obviously, a talent pipeline does not appear out of nowhere. There’s a lot of proactive work behind a long list of potential hires, in particular, constant networking with potential candidates. As soon as you develop the talent acquisition strategy in accordance with your company's needs and goals, the result will not be long in coming.

Choose Proper Screening Methods

Whether you vet potential hires for your talent pipeline list or after the job opening is posted, make sure to use proper screening methods for candidates.

In the tech industry, it comes to tests for knowledge of programming languages, frameworks, and libraries. According to Frederick Smith’s research, “work sample testing helps produce high predictive validities”. You will be able to collect the needed work samples in a short time while getting a clear picture of the candidate’s expertise.

What’s also important is the platform used to verify programming skills. They should be easy to set for both candidates and HR managers. Make sure the test task is composed by a senior-level developer but in a way that HR managers with no tech knowledge can evaluate the results themselves. This way, your candidate screening path becomes quicker and more straightforward.

Join Global Talent Networks

Listen. You may already know there’s a way to hire developers with no extra effort on your side. Some of you would think of IT outstaffing service, while someone would assume it’s about a recruitment agency that sources candidates for you.

But we’ll speak about something that’s a mix of both. It’s the global talent network, and if you still haven’t heard of one, you’re missing on a lot.

Global talent networks introduced a new approach to sourcing talents, in particular, software developers. In short, these are communities of remote specialists that were already pre-vetted by certain criteria. If you need a skilled developer for your upcoming project, a talent network can get you matched with the best candidates at the fastest time.

Communities like Spark X not only connect vetted developers with their best job opportunities - they actually take over the entire recruitment process and administrative work.

How Do You Speed Up the Time-to-Hire With Spark X?

• You don’t have to go through each candidate’s screening - we do it for you.

• You interview only those candidates who are likely to be a 100% match for your role.

• You don’t have to care about the administrative work (payments, tracking, and compliance is on us).

One more important thing is that Spark X hires exclusive talents with a broad knowledge range and a 3-year experience at minimum. Not only do we screen their coding knowledge but also make sure they are fluent in English and have good communication skills.

These are answers to common questions about Spark X.

Simplify the Hiring Procedure

Here’s the last tip for you to go. Try to make your recruitment procedure as easy as possible. You’ll need to optimize the areas where the majority of your applicants tend to drop out.

Most developers get overwhelmed by the number of tech interviews they have to pass in order to get selected. They are likely to give up a good job opportunity than go through 3+ interviews and a huge test task.

The more steps the applicants have to go through - the longer the time to hire. Having so many recruitment stages take a LOT OF time, so not everyone can simply dedicate.

What if you don’t need that many tasks on your tech screening? What if you can pre-screen a candidate on LinkedIn / Stack Overflow / GitHub instead of spending 30 minutes on a pre-screen call? Rethink your hiring procedure now.

Conclusion

An average developer may be able to do the job, but a great developer can take your product to the next level. That’s why hunting for the best candidates is a whole race with a built-up strategy and a big preparation beforehand.

Let’s go through the key highlights of our post:

• Studies reveal it takes on average 56 days to hire an IT specialist across the world. The time-to-hire for software developers, in particular, expands to almost 81 days.

• Knowing the time-to-hire for remote developers is important. It gives you more control of the recruiting process and how fast candidates go through all recruitment stages.

• The longer the time-to-hire - the more it affects the company’s revenue, brand, and team’s efficiency.

• When hiring someone new, you need to be clear about the type of developer you are looking for and what problem you are going to solve by having a new specialist in your team.

• Talent pipelines and proper screening methods can optimize your time-to-hire in a better way.

• Join a global talent network like Spark X and let us match you up with the best remote developers in days, not months!