Recruiting remote developers is no longer just about filling roles. It’s about finding and integrating talents into your team in the most harmonious way possible.
But let’s be real — harmony demands orchestration. Without it, hiring can feel like a never-ending cycle of scheduling interviews across time zones and drowning in irrelevant resumes.
We’ve optimized our processes for the last two decades [BTW we are celebrating, have you seen our 20-year anniversary promotion already?], hiring hundreds of developers. At some point we were hiring developers for over 50 positions at the same time.
Here are 6 guiding principles that helped us hire good people fast:
1. Streamline Exposure to the Right Talent
Referrals are often a faster and more reliable source of talent than job boards. Your employees and partners will rarely send completely irrelevant candidates.
This makes internal referral programs a good way to find people who are not only skilled but also fit your company’s culture.
Many top developers actively contribute to open-source projects. Partnering with open-source communities and identifying top contributors to relevant projects is another great way to find relevant hires.
Developers in these communities are often highly skilled, and passionate, and are looking for remote opportunities that align with their interests.
2. Streamlining Initial Screening
- AI-powered screening tools and platforms help reduce the time spent evaluating candidates. Use Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) such as Workable or Greenhouse to automate resume filtering based on predefined criteria. This ensures only qualified candidates make it to the next round.
For tech skills, use platforms like HackerRank or Codility. These tools allow you to create custom coding challenges in real-time and automatically score assessments, helping you make data-driven decisions.
For positions that require specialized skills (e.g., data scientists, motion designers, or cloud architects), consider offering paid technical assessments to candidates. Paying candidates for a more complicated technical test can increase engagement and help you attract the best talent without burdening them with unpaid, time-consuming tests.
- Use asynchronous interviews, where candidates respond to pre-recorded questions at their convenience. Platforms like SparkHire or HireVue allow candidates to record their answers to interview questions.
This removes scheduling conflicts, speeds up the process, and allows your team to assess only the most relevant candidates.
- Instead of relying solely on managers to handle technical interviews, include peer developers. Peer-led interviews often yield better insights into candidates’ true technical ability and ability to collaborate with the team.
Peer interviews free up managers’ time and allow your team to get a sense of the candidate’s communication style and vibe. This approach ensures that hires aren’t just technically strong but also culturally aligned.
3. Earn Respect and Increase Desirability
Developers today want to work for companies that offer more than just a paycheck—they’re looking for purpose, work-life balance, and a positive work culture.
They will waste your time and eventually end up elsewhere If they don’t feel it.
So, don’t just focus on hiring when you need someone ASAP — build a passive pipeline of interested candidates over time through strategic content marketing. Share blog posts, case studies, or technical challenges written by your team that showcase the kind of work you do and the innovative solutions you develop.
To eliminate this scenario, you should probably invest in building a proper reputation and strong brand for yourself, your team, and your company:
Companies that invest in posting thought leadership pieces on platforms like LinkedIn, GitHub, and Medium, position themselves as industry leaders, attracting developers who want to work with cutting-edge tech.
Nurture your brand online, through opinion leadership and personal stories, and create a desire to work for you.
4. Spread the Right Vibes to Reduce Drop-Off
Allowing people to get a feel of the job and the corporate culture can remove obstacles to choosing your company and increase the motivation to work for you.
The best approach here is to let them experience what it’s like to work for you:
Create virtual recruitment events or open days where prospective developers can learn about your company and meet key team members. These events can showcase your projects, culture, and values in an engaging format, making candidates feel connected before they apply.
Hosting coding challenges, Q&A sessions with CTOs, or showcasing live project demos can attract top talent and position your company as a forward-thinking employer. For ex. host informal "Ask Me Anything" (AMA) sessions with your tech leads or engineering managers where potential candidates can ask questions about your company, tech stack, or the role itself.
Offer potential hires a sneak peek into your company culture by creating remote onboarding videos. Show team introductions and the tools and workflows they use, and offer tips for working remotely.
Showcase testimonials or social proof from your current remote developers. Create a video series or blog posts where your team shares their experiences of working remotely, how they maintain work-life balance, or what they love about the company culture.
5. Earn Some Time Through Outsourcing
Outsourcing saves time by allowing you to offload the hiring logistics to your outsourcing partner. It reduces the administrative burden on your internal HR team and decreases the risks associated with bad hires.
Good outsourcing partners have pre-vetted candidates or organic teams suited to your specific project needs. Ideally, such teams can start working right away and deliver results while you focus on hiring. [We provide such services, so you are welcome to reach out and see if we have the right people or teams for you]
But above all, outsourcing allows you to keep hiring without stalling your projects. You can easily scale your development team up or down without any concerns.
6. Streamlining Onboarding by Making it …Fun
Beyond the basics of automating document signing and setting up tools, adding an element of gamification can make onboarding more engaging and fun for new hires:
Interactive Learning Modules: Break down essential onboarding tasks into levels or challenges that new hires can complete as they go. Each task completion could unlock new resources or access to teams, turning onboarding into an engaging, step-by-step experience.
Onboarding Leaderboards: Create friendly competition by introducing leaderboards that track onboarding progress. For instance, new hires can earn points for completing tasks like setting up their development environment, completing cybersecurity training, or submitting their first piece of code.
Reward Systems: Offer badges, certifications, or even small perks for completing certain milestones, such as finishing training modules or contributing to a project in their first week. This taps into the intrinsic motivation of developers, encouraging them to stay engaged while learning the ropes.
Using HR automation platforms like BambooHR, Sapling, or Deel, you can also help speed up the logistical aspects of onboarding. These platforms can handle everything from ensuring tools are accessible on day one to automating workflows for compliance and training.
Few Metrics You Might Want to Adopt
Streamlining Recruitment Is Not Just About Speed. The goal isn’t just to hire developers quickly; it’s to hire the right people, efficiently. By implementing these six strategies, you can enhance the speed and quality of your recruitment process.
Tracking key recruitment metrics ensures that hiring is aligned with your goals. Metrics provide insight into areas for improvement and help refine your hiring process over time.
Key metrics to track:
**Time to fill: ** The number of days it takes to fill a position, from posting the job to accepting an offer. Tracking this helps you identify bottlenecks in your hiring process and work to reduce them, ensuring you stay competitive in attracting talent.
Cost per hire: The total cost incurred in hiring a candidate, including job postings, recruiting tools, assessments, and onboarding expenses, divided by the number of hires. This helps to streamline your approach, reduce unnecessary expenses, and optimize your recruitment budget.
Interview-to-hire ratio: The number of candidates interviewed compared to the number of successful hires. This helps to refine your screening and interviewing methods to ensure you’re only moving strong candidates forward.
**Application drop-off rate: **The percentage of candidates who start but do not complete the application process. By tracking this metric, you can simplify your application forms and improve the overall candidate experience, leading to higher completion rates.
Remember the Outsourcing part? Give us a ping to see which of our organic teams are available today.
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