It is challenging to hire programmers. What’s even more challenging is hiring employees outside of your expertise. With the ever-growing demand for techies in different roles, HR executives without a tech background are going through a hard time finding the best hire.
But, what if tech hiring for non-techie HRs didn’t have to be challenging? That’s a possibility we’ll explore today. Of course, not every HR executive has a tech background, but that shouldn’t hinder hiring the most suitable programmers and software developers for open roles. Here’s how you can do it.
Hire Programmers With the Right Questions
Asking the right questions will always lead you to suitable candidates. Some questions are more pertinent for programmers than for other fields. Identifying the right person will become easy once you know what and when to ask.
It is an excellent idea to let go of traditional questions that do not value much. For example, the question Why should we hire you? Can often be meaningless in a tech interview.
Most of the time, such questions do not tell you anything meaningful about the candidate, except, perhaps, their oratory skills.
While it may be outside your expertise to ask programming questions, you can ask a host of other questions that will impact how the candidate fits into your office’s work culture.
Please remember, your job is much more than finding the most qualified person as a recruiter. And finding the right candidate is much more critical than screening CVs.
Therefore, you need to find people who will fit in the team and cooperate closely with everyone else. Ask questions that reveal the candidate’s mindset, work ethics, vision, and inclinations. Sometimes these questions alone will tell you whether a candidate is suitable for the team or not.
1. Prepare for the interview
Both the interviewer and the interviewee need to prepare for the interview. As a recruiter, do all your homework before you hire programmers.
Start with thorough research on the job market in the tech field. That will give you an idea about which skills are in high demand and which are obsolete.
Similarly, research into the different ongoing projects about specific programming areas. For example, Web 3 is now on the rise. Any programmer with a knack for Web 3 will be an excellent asset for your business. Try to find similar trends and projections in your pre-interview research.
2. Uncover the human behind the coder
When you hire programmers, you are not just hiring someone to write codes for you. You hire a person who will be an integral part of your team. Therefore, it is crucial for the new hire to feel at-home with the work culture and office model.
The best time to know about a candidate’s personal life is during the interview. Also, as an HR professional, you should already have a good understanding of how people react under pressure.
Knowing a hire’s resilience to pressure is often enough to understand how well they will stick to the team during tumultuous times. Therefore, when interviewing a potential programmer for your company, make sure you select someone whose credentials match their work ethics and temperament.
Work With Subject Matter Experts
A business or organization might need experts in various domains. Of course, no one can be an expert in each field. Nonetheless, HR executives can hire them all. Without subject matter experts, hiring good candidates would be impossible.
Why do you need a subject matter expert?
It is essential to understand the responsibilities between an HR executive and a subject matter expert before moving forward.
A subject matter expert would only have expertise in one field, unlike an HR executive. For an HR executive, the nature of their work demands a comprehensive understanding of various hiring processes. Subject matter experts, on the contrary, niche down to one area and stick to it.
If you are an HR professional without a tech background trying to hire programmers, you need a subject matter expert’s assistance. However, the responsibilities of both roles differ significantly. Subject matter experts do not concern themselves with the work ethics or adaptability of the candidate. Their work exclusively evaluates their technical skills and prowess and nothing more.
The job of HR executives is to take input from the subject matter expert and then make the final call for hire. HRs would need to factor in various elements before making the call. However, it is up to the recruiter, in the end, to weigh all pros and cons and come to a conclusion.
Understand the Language Programmers Speak
Every profession has a language or rather jargon of its own. For example, when you are working with bankers and finance experts, you are likely to hear a lot of similar phrases, terminology, and ways of putting things in that particular setting. This is what jargon is about.
The same applies to all professions, programmers especially. To understand how programmers speak and think about the world around them, you need to spend time with them.
There’s nothing to worry about if you do not have programmers around you with whom you can discuss various aspects of hiring new employees.
With online forums and social media platforms, you can easily find experienced professionals in the tech sector willing to pass on their knowledge. Interact with them and follow their content to understand the world of coders and programmers better. This will immensely benefit you in the long run.
Learn From Your Mistakes
It is effortless to make mistakes while screening and selecting potential employees. Chances are you have already made some mistakes in the past. But the nature of HR departments makes it too expensive to afford multiple errors. With so little ground to lose, learn all you can from your and your peers’ mistakes.
If you don’t have a technical background, it is natural to find hiring programmers challenging. However, finding the right candidates is more than possible if you know what to do and say and whom to get help from at the right time during the process.
For more advice and tips on the tech job market, head over to the CodeQuotient blog now.
