The Software Developers’ Hiring Game

My experience in the software developer hiring game. Both as a recruiter and a candidate.

To grow my own team and contribute to Shopify’s 2021 hiring plan, I started to actively source developers a year ago. Like most developers, I am normally on the receiving end of the recruiter’s messages. So this has been a chance to get a peek behind the curtain.

Shopify provided tooling training to help me get started. The task was a bit intimidating though.

So I reached out: I have family members & friends in recruitment. When I asked them to share their experience, I realized that getting good at sourcing by practicing a large volume of candidates would take me too long. I would not be able to achieve my hiring goals in time.

The gap I had to bridge was to get developers in a call. Selling the team and company to them would be the easiest part for me. Because I know my team, company and almost answer any question a developer might have.

My goal was to identify high-potential developers, open to switching jobs, and convince them to hop on a call.

After starting, I quickly wanted to get better and increase my response rate. That’s when I realized that I already have a learning resource that passively grew over the past 10 years: my LinkedIn inbox.

I went through every message of the past 5 years (~ 380). At the same time, I started experimenting with my reach-out sequences (scheduled messages for new candidate leads). By combining my in-house training at Shopify, help from peers, my own experience as a candidate, and my learnings as a first-time software engineer “sourcer” I identified some green/red flags themes.

Just a heads-up, I am sharing my own experience. By no mean, this list is intended to be a combination of universal truths or rules. After all, I am just a newbie that is running experiments with this :).

Now let’s reverse engineer sourcing!

Sourcing intent

As a candidate, this is my first filter in knowing if a message is worth my attention. The question I ask myself is “how did this recruiter pick my profile?”.

What I am trying to determine at this stage, is how do both parties (recruiter/candidate) know that they could be a good fit for each other?

The first step is for the recruiter to have done their homework into how a candidate’s experience could match with a job opening. At this point, if there are no clues to answer this question, in my opinion, it is better to bet on a “no-match” and save your time.

Beware of the automatic sourcing tools that some recruiters use: they can pre-fill a message with some elements of your resume (job title, job description, etc…). Look for something that pops out and screams “I actually read your resume”.

From a recruiting standpoint, I noticed that I received 21.4% more answers (within 3 days of sending the initial message) if I invested 5 minutes drafting a personal part into how a candidate’s experience matched the role I am trying to fill. This also gave me an edge in our first call because we already established a connection.

In the case where a candidate has a detailed resume (project, tech stacks, growth, etc…) I like to think about the next steps in their career. For a senior developer, in the role for 3 years or more, it could look like something in the lines of:

“I have noticed that in project {Y} you lead the technical implementation on the mobile side. As the team grows, I think you would make an excellent technical lead/manager. Is this something you would be interested in pursuing? I would love to hear more about your recent contributions and what the next steps in your career look like.”

Note: I don’t make empty promises to lure candidates though, this has to be genuine and align with the growth of my team/group.

The position description

Understanding the skills needed, the product you will work on and your role in the team is key before moving forward as a candidate.
Same for a recruiter, you want to bet on developers who:

• are qualified or open to switch stacks
• engaged with the future product they will work on
• have a role matching their experience

This is up to the recruiter to eliminate ambiguity to make sure the time/emotional investment is worth it for both parties.

Often I see skills mismatches, no description of the product/team or a role offered above/below the candidate’s current level. I have grown to dislike the approach of gambling on missing skills/information in the hope that you would get a match (as a recruiter). By doing that, you not only break the trust/engagement of a candidate but advertise low recruiting standards externally.

The sender

I like to think that the source of the email plays a considerable role in the candidate’s perception. The range is wide in terms of types of contact: CEO/CTO, manager, technical recruiter, consultant, etc…

Here is my ranking from best to worst:

• Managers: they provide a unique opportunity to candidates. You can get to know your potential future manager and get a close picture of the front lines. You can also get a good idea of the position & team. I am obviously biased here :D
• Product owners, Founders, CEO/CTOs: any of those would be solid contacts. They usually know the product from top to bottom and could provide a good perspective on culture too. The insight you will gain is likely to be less specific than with a manager but might end up being a better fit if you don’t know which team you are interviewing for yet.
• Technical recruiters (in-house): probably the most common type of contact you will get. They are generally effective to find good matches and can provide context to candidates. They might not be able to provide a lot of details from a Product & Engineering perspective to you though. Usually this is balanced by candidates pairing with hiring managers later in the recruitment process.
• External/Independent recruiter (consultant): they have little to no skin in the game and are incentivized to get any match working. For example, the last time I was contacted by a recruiting agency, the job description was a mix of highlights for what was in fact 6 different companies disguised into a single job offer! This is the kind of interaction that eroded the trust I have with consultants over the years.

Values & alignment

This is the hardest to share/evaluate in a reach-out message. As a candidate, I recommend to do a bit of homework before answering a message. Go on Glassdoor, Reddit, Google, etc… Ask around about the culture & company. Hours, perks, social rituals, autonomy, internal access to information, internal promotions, and more are all revealing of a company’s culture.

Don’t just go with compensation. Think about the trade at stake here. Will you have the space to grow, have fun, and impact?

For recruiters, if your company is doing well here (and it should, otherwise why would you work there), this is a chance to highlight that at the end of your message.

That’s it for now

Those are my thoughts after spending a year sourcing. It is too early for me to expand on subjects like compensation transparency, recruiting bias, or social media reach-outs yet. I need more time out there and more experience.
I am looking to challenge those strategies to help them mature.

Please reach out or comment if you have any thoughts on the things I shared above. Now I am going back to experimenting, see you, folks, later.