How to Find the Best Front-End Developers for Your Next Project

It’s no secret that there’s a huge shortage of top IT talent, so hiring them can be quite tough and expensive. But the good news is that you can find great front-end developers by building a strong hiring strategy.

Being the company that pays the most for top tech talent can work for some, but it can quickly become futile if you don’t have the budget to compete with established tech giants.

To overcome this hurdle, businesses need to develop and adapt tactics to help build their specialist teams. Here are five strategies to help you find the best front-end developers for your next project.

1. Be Good to Your Recruiters

When you’re faced with a highly competitive market, your in-house HR department may not suffice. Most often, enterprises meet their hiring objectives with the help of third-party recruiters.

It’s important to invest in these relationships. When you spend time talking to them about the type of engineering culture you’re looking to build, the skills and talents that are important to your organization, you have a much better chance of getting the right candidate for your technology projects.

These recruiters will, in turn, build strong long-term relationships with your team and the candidates themselves. These individuals will have highly successful careers of their own and will go on to hire their own teams of software engineers, building a holistic technology community.

However, if you want to be good to your recruiters, you have to give them your complete attention, provide feedback, make hiring decisions quickly, and most importantly return their calls promptly.

2. Treat Your Candidates Like Great Customers

Your recruitment strategy should be a lot like your marketing and sales funnel. But what does that even mean?

Think about it, if you get a great lead for a highly qualified and experienced front-end developer, would you wait three days to call them back? You wouldn’t do that with a potential customer, in fact, you would go out of your way to make sure that they had a great experience with your brand.

The same rules apply when you’re engaging in a recruitment exercise. So make it part of your organization’s HR culture to go above and beyond to ensure a great hiring experience.

This approach is important as it can be the key differentiator that gets them to sign a contract with your company.

3. Encourage Your Developers to Act as Teachers

If the skillset you’re looking for is rare, the next best option is to hire and teach your new recruits. You’ll find that this approach will usually bring in some highly motivated engineers who are eager to learn a new engineering discipline.

These new recruits will also be more likely to be loyal to your organization and not jump ship as soon they’re offered more money. In our experience, software engineers who thrive in learning and overcoming challenges appreciated the opportunity and remained highly loyal to the company.

4. Leverage Your Network

When you’ve been in the business long enough, you will have a strong network of engineers and technology leaders. When you leverage your network, you can get direct access to top talent that might be looking for new opportunities to move on.

So when you start looking for the best front-end developers out there, go to your network first. If anyone responds, take the time to discuss the opportunity in a social setting. Even if they decide that they’re not a good fit for your project, they might give you some leads to explore.

5. Expand Your Reach Offshore

If you can’t find the skillset you need onshore, the next best option is to look offshore. Countries in Eastern Europe like Ukraine have highly trained engineers who possess significant experience working for top North American brands, so it makes complete sense to pursue this opportunity.

However, if you don’t have considerable experience running offshore development teams, you might feel more secure working with a partner. While a third-party contractor can help you identify and hire top tech talent, you must treat your offshore developers the same as your in-house team once they’re hired.