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Can you help me write an article about hiring a good developer? ...for our benefit...


Can you help me write an article about hiring a good developer? ...for...

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considered
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Yesterday I was posting about the insanity of agencies on the Visual Basic forum.



I wanted to try and raise some awareness and perhaps even educate some of those guys, and employers, how to employ a decent candidate - at the moment they're focusing on the wrong things... Being a good developer, this is a frustrating - the way recruitment agencies are behaving right now I could easily be beaten into a position by a developer that ends up costing the employer a LOT of money with bad practices... I've seen it over and over again.



I'm not sure exactly how I'd go about doing that... but I thought I'd, at least, make a start by writing an article that they could understand.



Perhaps you guys would consider bouncing ideas of it, giving me feedback, perhaps writing and little yourselves, and give me ideas about other things I could say? Analogies to make it simpler to understand from a laymans point of view would be great too?



I only have limited time each day to devote to this, but here's a rough "sketch" I did today, just to get the ball rolling...



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How to hire a good developer



Recently I had the very unpleasant experience of dealing with recruiment consultants who are pitching their clients as unfriendly pretenders, concentrating in completely the wrong area.



I wanted to write something to raise awareness in employers and recruitment agencies.



Think about this from the point of view of photography...



You wouldn't turn down a David Bailey or a Richard Avedon (two of the greatest photographers of all time) because they haven't used a Canon EOS 5D Mark III and yet, this is exactly what's going on today in software.



What's going on?



For the last 15 years I've been working, primarily, with the language Visual Basic.



To write software we use something not dissimilar to Microsoft Word...



Like Microsoft Word, this software (Visual Studio) has been through many, sometimes yearly, releases - the language just like the English language has bearly changed though.



Despite this, everyone is concentrating on which years' version has been used...



...from the point of view of a good software developer, trying to get through the firewall of agencies, it's like the whole world has gone mad.



More insanity



Another practice that's making your potential candidates yawn. Is the agencies "proven" technique of questioning your essential requirements "what else? what else? what else? what else?" resulting in job specs that look like this:



"Our client, a top 10 inter-galactic high-street software provider, is looking for a slave/programmer... To be considered for this amazing opportunity it is essential you have experience with Visual Studio (specifically this weeks release), Pearls and Diamonds, Stacks of Lamps (with orange energy-saver bulbs, blue light-shades and a string-switch), Rubies on electro-magnetic rails, SOAP (and bubble-bath), XML (just a simple file-format but ESSENTIAL) and a thorough understanding of UML."



Why is that a problem?



Generally, agencies don't give us candidates the same level of respect they give the employer - nothing like it in fact. Good software developers have a pretty good idea where to find rewarding jobs but to get there we need to weed through lots of roles that aren't. Recruitment is a numbers game and agencies hate this - they can't stand having candidates who won't interview for any position, which means we have to hold them at bay and personally weed through all the job adverts ourselves. Right now I've got the top job sites sending me alerts of new positions in my area as though seeking a position - I get around 120 emails a week. As you can imagine reading the words "our client a market leading, inter-dimensional time-lord are seeking a pro-active, forward-thinking, devoted slave who will attend any interview and take any job gratefully" is frustrating.



It's funny really



If you Wrote this instead:



"Job: an environment welcoming creativity and employing lateral thinking techniques is looking for a software developer, with good programming principles, who understands abstration and extensibility and has experience with [insert language here] - to join in."



...and the good software developers will be queuing up for interview with smiles on their faces complimenting your revolutionary advert, knowing this is going to be an interesting place to work!



(I've worked for pretenders - hopefully they stopped reading at the first sentence).



So how do you hire a good developer?



Should you give them a test? Get them to write software? Sure, that's not the worst idea in the world... what you really need to do is concentrate on principles.



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...That's as far as I've got for the time being... I'm going to write more about principles etc.



I'd appreciate your feedback, ideas and any writing you feel you'd like to add Smile
Edited
10/23/2013 by considered
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Very helpful and informative posting. Thank you for taking the time to post.


Best regards,

Forum Administrator
A1VBCode



considered
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Admin (10/23/2013)
Very helpful and informative posting. Thank you for taking the time to post.




You're welcome - thanks for the kind words Smile



...



By the way, if anyone wants to run with this idea, at any point, and get something published - maybe even take some words, as the thread evolves... please go ahead...



I'll welcome the arrival of the day agencies start talking with some insight and sensibility about them!



All contributions are welcome, also any ideas about where the finished article could be posted to raise awareness... Smile
Edited
10/23/2013 by considered
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I'm going to ditch the advertising advise and concentrate on the principles I think.



Here's a bit more:



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What are programming principles?



Let's think about this from the point of view of building a house.



You form a solid foundation so the house doesn't slide away or get penetrated by damp, use a spirit-level and plumb-line to make sure the structure and walls are straight and true, you mix your mortal to the correct ratio, making sure the walls don't crumble and fall down - if there's space for storage you include it, make a roof that won't blow off and include windows so we can see out - and you don't totally wall-up internal spaces that could be used otherwise.



Just like building a house: when we start writing software we do so from a position of formlessness and can literally throw piles of bricks into a swamp, leaving space in the middle and toss a bit of cardboard on top for a roof - just crawl through a gap if you can find one!



In the case of software, though, it's not easy for a layman to assess what's there because the structure isn't visible... and just like a house it can be very costly if it's built badly! Usually we don't find out until it's too late.



Fortunately, there are a set of timeless principles programmers can employ to make sure your house stays up forever, is energy-efficient, uses natural and electrical lighting to good effect, and if you want an extension or swimming pool later that'll be no problem! More power-sockets, in a flash, no complete rewire necessary!
Edited
10/23/2013 by considered
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