How to Hire .NET Developers

Victor Osetskyi
Aug 29, 2017 · 8 min read

Hiring — is not just looking through the resume, but it is a complex and gradual process. You won’t let yourself to lose a potentially highly-skilled candidate. And also you won’t qualify weak candidates to get into inconsistencies with your team and waste your precious time. Having the applications and CVs, you decide which one of the programmers is good enough, to have a technical interview at once.

Existek is a custom software development company helping our customers to solve their business challenges with best in its class software. Contact us to get an instant and free expert consultation about your custom software development project.

Hiring — is not just looking through the resume, but it is a complex and gradual process. You won’t let yourself to lose a potentially highly-skilled candidate. And also you won’t qualify weak candidates to get into inconsistencies with your team and waste your precious time. Having the applications and CVs, you decide which one of the programmers is good enough, to have a technical interview at once.

So there’s a question: what is the proper way to estimate .NET programming skills, to find the candidates, perfectly matching for work. Let us assist and show you, what is important in this technology, and how fast and effectively bring in the candidates to hire .NET developers.

What is important to know for the recruiter to hire .NET developers?

As like in the Java, the language knowledge (here it is C# mostly) isn’t enough. To hire .NET developers, you should be aware of the frameworks and libraries, like ASP .NET MVC or Entity Framework, at least because any major commercial application is built on it. You should not also discard a candidate if he is not familiar with some point from the list of requirements. Frameworks are similar somehow, so if he is sophisticated in one of them, he can easily switch to another one, because he knows the principles and idea behind it.

Nonetheless, a commercial experience is the thing that brings real profit for the employer.

The knowledge of .NET from the university, but with the lack of practice, will not bring something useful to the business coding. Of course, when you hire .NET developers and looking for juniors, you should take the education to your consideration. You may ask for the examples of the .NET programming projects with an open source code.

How to confirm .NET developer skills on the interview?

The IT recruiters use different hiring methods to estimate .NET skills, based on CV and technical interview. You’ll find useful tips below on how to hire .NET developers, what’s more important — qualified developers.

Technical interview of .NET programmer based on the CV

When you hire .NET developers, you may find useful information in the CVs. But for that, you have to be aware of written there. You should be familiar with the structures, frameworks, tools, etc., to know what you are looking for. To speak the same language with the developer. The first step to understanding may be the glossary, like the one given below.

Possibly, if you aren’t a technician you may be a bit confused about all these abbreviations and technical names. But do not worry of that, taking a bit deeper with the basics of this sphere will let you speak the same language with the developers.

Importance of .NET certificate for professional programming skills estimation

The certificate — is a questionable topic in the .NET sphere. Some companies and specialists say that this is nearly the best indicator of high-level skills. On the other hand, some say that these exams barely demonstrate any practical skills, showing only its theoretical side. But we certainly can say that certificates should not prove anything. Many great developers do not have one because of not willing to waste time for passing the test to acquire the certificate. The others, who do not have enough of commercial experience, try to lift up their market value, obtaining a certificate by passing the exam for it. Obviously, the certificate availability is better than its absence. But the recruiters should keep in mind, that this “feature” is more like “nice to have” when you hire .NET developers. But still — commercial experience and recommendations are the best indicators of programmers skills. In .NET, definitely, the Microsoft certificates are the most valuable when it is about software development. They can be divided into several groups:

Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS)

MCTS is used as the entry point for the Microsoft certificates. Certain Microsoft technologies are approved through this test, like WPF, SQL Server, SharePoint, Windows Server, etc.

Earlier, there used to be many kinds of the MCTS certificates, which lead to some mess, so Microsoft have reworked their certification scheme, and now they promote MCSD, described below. That means that MCTS certification will dissolve in the nearest future. Nonetheless, even being outdated, its availability is appreciated for the candidate when you hire .NET developers.

Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer (MCSD)

MCSD proves that the programmer has the full-stack competence to create multi-structured applications. Consistently the developer should pass few exams on certain technologies. Here are some of them:

  • MCSD: Web Applications (covers HTML 5, JavaScript, CSS3, ASP.NET MVC 4, ASP.NET WebApi 2, WCF, Azure)
  • MSCD: SharePoint Applications (covers HTML 5, JavaScript, CSS3, ASP.NET MVC 4, SharePoint Server 2013).

Other information, that shows .NET programmer’s skills

You should pay attention at some points in candidate’s resume when you hire .NET developer:

  • The candidate is proving that you are dealing with the professional not as the single person, but as the one who can be a great addition to your existing team.
  • Work experience in the large projects, including big volumes of data: that means that candidate is probably aware of how to solve the issues, which may appear in any software development project.
  • Participation in the programming conferences or meetings: this is the indicator of the programmer’s interest to his area evolution and his own growth.
  • Participation in the open-source projects: like we mentioned in our previous article, this is valuable “nice to have” feature, endorsed for programmers. It demonstrates developers interest and their at least mid-level skill.

Technical interview of .NET developer

Making confident opinion on candidate’s skills reading CV only is quite difficult when you hire .NET developers. That is why the technical interview is required for the recruiters: to measure not only the numbers on the paper but to estimate person as well.

Interview questions to hire .NET developers:

Q: What was the most interesting project you have participated in? Could you, please, describe it and tell why is it so attractive?

This gives you the idea on the complicity of the projects, that programmer participated in, and, of course, his preferences (Interface, database, algorithm, etc.)

Q: Could you, please explain the difference between [e.g.:] ASP .NET MVC and Web Forms structures?

If the candidate can explain the difference to a non-technician but with easy words, that shows his communicative skills with the business users. Moreover, the ability to explain shows a deep understanding of the area.

Q: Explain please the difference between managed and unmanaged code.

This question allows to clarify the candidate’s understanding of the CLR (Common Language Runtime), a compelling part of the .NET framework.

Q: Could you please explain what is JSON data and how .NET programmers work with JSON?

JSON is abbreviation for JavaScript Object Notation. This is the way to organize and store data in the way to access and read it. Being a text format, JSON do not depend on the programming language used.

Q: Do you like to take part in the analysis, design, and deployment of the project, or you prefer clear concentration on the development of fine explained task?

The choice of the first option shows his preference to the agile projects. The second one — his intention to work in the projects with strict frames.

Q: I have noticed, that you mentioned X structure in your CV. What’s your opinion, is that a good choice?

Such a straight question gives the candidate possibility to show off his skills in some area. You will see, how the candidate makes his personal decision and warrants his choice.

Q: Think of that, how would you solve the project task, that wasn’t a good solution? Why did it happen? Is there any other way to turn it into success? What have you obtained of that experience?

These questions will help you to find out, how the developer estimates his own decisions, how he makes a conclusion and how good he learns of his previous experience.

Technical interview with online coding test

Online coding test can be a great skill estimation tool to hire .NET developers. Depending on the company’s approach to the test, it can be the main tool to measure candidates skills, or be a side task alongside with Skype interview, for example. But still, more and more companies make the online test as the main instrument on the hiring .NET developer. The reason is that it gives the recruiter significant advantages:

  • .NET developers most important feature — is his programming skills, which are required to be seen.
  • The verified candidates will not waste time of your team in the future
  • The candidate, which is ready to participate in the coding test, shows his readiness to assist you in the hiring process, and this has a positive impact on him.

This is why not showing for the coding test rarely happens.

Conclusion

So the answer to the main question: how to hire .NET developers — is to understand them and their specialty. If you are a recruiter, it is highly appreciated for you to obtain at least basic skills and knowledge of this area. And if you are the technician, who hires developers on the last stage, it is good for you to remember, that not only highest-skill is important to the developer. But his personality is important as well, to be best-matching part of your team.

Urgently need professional .NET team? Existek is a custom software development company with deep .NET expertise in our core. Contact Us to discuss your requirements. Also, you may visit our Services Page to learn more about us.

Download “2017 Global Custom Software Development Rates” to get a comprehensive analysis of the pricing in three most popular onshore and offshore outsourcing locations. Hourly rates cards for these territories are included.

Source

Existek is a custom software development company helping our customers to solve their business challenges with best in its class software. Contact us to get an instant and free expert consultation about your custom software development project.

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Victor Osetskyi

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Full-cycle software development company. Latest company and industry news.

EXISTEK

EXISTEK

Full-cycle software development company. Latest company and industry news.

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