In today’s job market, it can seem like a luxury to hire a qualified development team – in fact, it’s the key to your growth and success. Let us tell you why.
It happens often enough to everyone: you need a new hire. We’re in a global market now where more and more people are choosing to become developers, and so it might be tempting for tech companies and startups to think they can afford to be picky.
But the reality is that the amount of open jobs for programmers is increasing exponentially faster than the number of new grads with the skills to fill them. Put simply: it’s a programmer’s market when it comes to job hunting. We’re seeing countless companies and startups scrambling to fill their tech positions – one expert
predicts that, by 2020, there will be over a million programming vacancies in the US alone.
With all this in mind, it can be tempting to onboard just about anyone who can code Ruby, Python or Javascript. This is understandable. After all, even major companies often
hire for ‘potential’ rather than for experience.
But this can also be a huge mistake. When it comes to treating your company (and your employees) right, it often pays to hire highly talented and experienced developers. That said, not everyone knows the benefits of having a truly experienced set of employees in your stable, let alone how to hire them.
We can think of a few reasons to give it some more thought.
1) You need to play the long game
When HR departments look at CVs for potential new hires, it can be tempting to be impressed with long histories at a number of interesting companies. But hiring a qualified developer isn’t about onboarding someone with a history – it’s about finding programmers who are going to become part of your history.
Junior developers are notorious for job-hopping – countless articles encourage new programmers to try different companies until they find the ‘right fit’. This might be great for their learning curve, but it wreaks havoc for the companies left in their wake.
The bright side to this is that once new developers have sown their wild oats, so to speak, they’ll be looking for a company that’s a great fit and provides long-term stability. For companies wondering how to put together a qualified development team, these are the ideal target: programmers who will invest in company growth as much as you will.
Keeping a team of senior developers can also help your company grow because they’ve been around long enough to know your company’s values, as well as how to scale while remaining true to your brand’s core identity. An ever-shifting stable of junior developers will never have that know-how.
2) It might not look like it right now, but qualified new hires will save you money
We can’t say this enough: even if it seems that hiring qualified developers is far more expensive at the beginning but onboarding less experienced programmers is always going to
cost you more in the end.
This might seem counterintuitive – after all, junior developers are paid less. That, and they often turn out to be more flexible when it comes to adapting to your company’s needs. Senior programmers can come with their own assumptions and old habits that might prove a challenge to overcome. Why wouldn’t you want to avoid that?
We would like to disagree.
First, as mentioned above, with the rate that junior developers hop from job to job, your company will have to invest in constant onboarding. Which costs a lot of money, to say nothing of time or productivity.
Second, with all the competition out there attracting great talent, starting salaries are
getting higher and higher. Your company is going to be paying more for entry-level programmers every time you hire. Imagine that, instead of paying out increasingly high starting wages for unproved talent, you use that money to hire a highly qualified developer that has more reasons to stick around.
Which leads us to our final point in this regard: with a more stable, experienced set of programmers, you’ll have more capital to offer incentives for worthwhile employees to stay. They know your customers, your brand and how to add ongoing value to your business. It’s not just about keeping people – it’s about
keeping the right people.
3) A diversity of experience sets your company apart from the crowd
Sure, the chance to form a junior developer into exactly the kind of programmer you’re looking for has a lot of benefits. There are no butting heads about the best method to do things – you show them the right way and they do it. Simple.
But the wise manager utilizes these ‘conflict’ moments with experienced developers into learning opportunities for the whole company. A senior programmer might have already worked at five different startups, and so they might have a unique insight that managers may never have thought of. They’re likely to notice whole sets of red flags that will never be as obvious to you as it is to them.
By sitting down and talking through these conflicts, managers and team heads will draw on a broad range of unique experiences and incorporate them into new strategies. Not only will you be improving your company’s performance, but you’ll be making your best programmers feel included and invested in the process.
In today’s fast-moving tech market, you must innovate or risk becoming irrelevant. It’s all too easy for companies to reinvent the wheel and fall behind – by hiring a qualified development team, you skip that stage entirely and can immediately utilize your employees’ unique histories to build a brand that’s quick to respond to new trends and client needs.
Thinking ahead
When it comes to building the team that’s going to take your company into the future, you want to think about hiring people who are going to be sticking around long enough to get you there. When thinking about who to onboard, the decision to hire highly skilled experience pays off in more ways than one.
As with anything, the key to success is looking past your immediate needs and envisioning the kind of company an experienced programmer will be happy to imagine spending five, ten or even more years at.
With a few key hiring decisions, your company will be on its way to building the best team suited to scaling your enterprise!
