How to approach a Ruby on Rails Developer
9 tips on how recruiters can get a developer attention
No, we do not hate you recruiters; it flatters us to know that people want our skills. We would just like to be approached in certain ways. This article is not talking about developer that are being contacted for their first gig. It’s mostly a guide on how to approach developers that already have some experience on their belt.
- Tell us the company name. We like to know who we’re going to be working for
The first rule you need to know is that, at the end of the day the name of the company matters. We are developers, we love to search for answers. For us making our own research is really important. This is what we do for a living! We code and make our own research. We do not care about what deal you have until we know who we are dealing with. When we have no idea who we are going to work for we tend to be skeptic. The only thing that potentially gets our attention in these situations is any salary above $100,000. Even if we don’t know the company and it’s a startup; you may still be able to convince us. Chances are those companies already approached us. Let’s not waste our time and yours by playing games.
2.We like to know how much this company is willing to pay upfront
If we are comfortable with a salary for the job we are going to do; we’ll usually consider it. In the end, salary is a good motivation so it all comes up to “What are you willing to offer to get the attention of the talent?”. Most developers believe that great companies are not cheap for talents. The recruitment process will help to verify the developer skills anyways. We often make our research on platform such as Indeed or Glassdoor to find out about the salaries in the region. We are aware of the salary rate in our industry. Usually competitive offers tend to get our attention.
3. No one likes to work under the market value for a job
We know that if we get hired you guys will be taking a cut of our salary (Of course we do!). And it doesn’t necessarily make us happy. But we understand that we got that job because you had the contact and you established the connection. So we can live with the idea that someone is taking a cut of our salary every months. However, we do not like to realize that the salary we are being offered/paid for is way under the market value. If you plan on taking a cut, make sure that the salary we’ll be getting is at least at market value.
4. Offering Flexibility and Perks definitely get our curiosity
Opportunity to work from home at least 1 day a week, free food, etc... Anything that can make our life easier at work is in our best interest. We spend a lot of time sitting and often developer also work from home. We take responsibility for what we built so if our code crashes in the middle of the night we will be the one trying to fix it until 2am in the morning. Some developers are willing to trade a part of their salary for amazing perks. Especially when the company is building some amazing stuff. If you can’t afford a competitive salary you must have great perks. If you can afford both, it’s even better.
5. Value on top of the salary get our attention
“Gentleman, you had my curiosity, but now you have my attention”
Once you have our curiosity, it’s the value on top of the salary that gets our attention. What there is in it for us in term of self-improvement, skills, will other developer be talented enough to challenge our inner skills. Will we learn something from the team? Is what we are doing going to put us on the spotlight? Is the company paying for courses and conferences to improve the overall team? Are we saving life? Knowing that there is value on what we do get our attention. If you can’t afford us, add enough value to get our attention. Be careful not to sound cliché. You can easily sound cliché when you are telling us that the company we are about to work for wants to change the world or disrupt an industry.
6. Remember that you’re not the only one.
Ruby on Rails is in high demand everywhere right now. Not just in North America but everywhere. We get offers from countries overseas that are willing to pay for our sponsorship, transportation and living fees in a foreign country. You must remember that you’re not the only one contacting us so don’t waste our time. If you think we’re special, make us feel special and let’s get straight to the point. Most successful senior developer receive 1 to 10 messages from recruiters a week and on a good day we get our LinkedIn blasted by head hunters and companies founders that want to hire us. By remembering that you’re not the only one, developer will be more humble toward discussing with you and you’ll have an easier dialogue if you’re respectable. Having a sense of humour always help too.
7. Make a great summary then setup a call for more.
A great summary mean that we’ll need to know the company name, the salary range and the core value we’ll get from working there. If the developer is interested he will always try to get on a call to get more info about the company. They’ll need to know information beyond the name of the company and the salary they offer. Developers will ask you specific questions: How big is the team? Who is working there? Do they have any perks? Can I work from home? Are they involved with any open source project or conference? etc… Your response will help to add value to the job so be prepared to answer these questions. Always ask yourself, what value can this developer get from this job and you’ll be able to get the answer they need. Or have a proposal strong enough that they won’t even need to ask a question.
8. Have a message strategy that incorporate value and perks.
Here a short script strategy that will help.
- Introduce yourself then your client
- Tell us what they are looking for
- Tell us why they are Awesome ( product/services, reputation)
- Tell us what they are willing to pay
- Tell us why they'll make us feel Awesome ( value and perks )
9. Contract > Full-time
The two reasons why developers thinks that contract are better than full-time is because of freedom and salary. Contract jobs pay significantly more than full-time jobs. And a developer can take more than one contract job at the time. If you want to get a developer to become a full-time employee give him a sense of freedom and flexibility but never ignore a good compensation. If you want to convince him to take a salary that is less than his contract job salary, offer him great perks and values that would be significant enough. No one wants to be payed less than what they are accustomed to. The value of the work a developer brings in is essentially the same whether he is a contractor of a full-time employee so make sure to have competitive salary offer when approaching them. Only a comfortable offer with flexibility can encourage a rails developer to stay with a company for a long time.
I’d like to add that I am very thankful for every recruiters that helped me landing a job and those who tried*. I am also thankful that you guys are here for that. I am sure that we all appreciate your hard work which focuses on helping people landing good job and making your customers happy by helping them finding talents. Thank you.
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