We teach recruiters to hire programmers

No matter how you say halva, it will not become sweeter in your mouth. No matter how you write “we are looking for a programmer”, there are no more programmers. How are ordinary recruiters trying to "lure" a typical programmer to work?

Typical ad:

It sounds almost like an announcement from the joke “We need workers to work at work, pay with money.”


Which of the questions of a potentially interested person does this announcement answer?

1. What project are invited to?
2. What is the technology stack?
3. In what city?
4. What are the work conditions?
5. What salary?

What does a typical programmer think when reading the name of the Yandex company? A big company is a big bureaucracy. Minus one point. The local company is Russian management. Another minus ball.

Typical job description:

Imagine that you are reading an ad on a dating site:
Recently, I decided to have a girl who will surpass all the previous ones. I really need her, so I do a casting.
What you will do:
Cook three times a day, clean, wash, go shopping, bring beer.
The primary (but not the only) area of ​​responsibility is to monitor the home. Keywords: Kitchen, Children, Church.
Required experience:
Culinary experience of 2 years.
Good knowledge of the Kama Sutra.
Fidelity and understanding that men are polygamous.
Understanding of male psychology.
Housework experience.

The question immediately arises - who will lead to this? No, well, if all the ads are like that, then maybe. But applicants are unlikely to line up when they see this.

Typical project description:

Lord, thank you. Yes, this is the project of my dreams! - people will never scream when they read it. If you read, of course.

Typical Recruitment Letter:

Hello, I’m an EMAP recruiter, we need employees in a banking project, the essence is ... The employee you need can be a tester, Java programmer or manager. If you can test, then in the room you will have terminals to test remotely, programmers then commit bugs, and you test them. If testing, then QA Automation should be. You can actively use scrum.

And the rallies are such that every morning but it was possible from home, if you want, or sick there. You can free schedule or 20% of the time as in Google. Both JIRA and TDD are all used. If you are a programmer, then you need to do it as a team lead, and before the release, everyone and the customer who come must be sure to listen as he says. But scrum is necessary.

Well, if you as a manager ... then you need to build testers and programmers, do what they want, and not just skarm. or you can make their weekend work if necessary. In total we have 4 projects. Those. the first project is a front-end (there jQuery is mandatory and HTML5), the second is a server (where the base is), but there Oracle, a 3-project integration with third-party communications (but there SOAP, REST, API are different), 4 is a release that must be released every month (as the customer wants)

If the tester works a lot, then at the team building it is necessary to praise him in front of everyone and a gift so that he is happy, and if it is bad so that he is not happy and works more. Also, programmers should work well, even if there is no bug, they should test there themselves or teach others, but if they don’t do anything for a long time, or let them do other work, or the best thing is ... they hired a team leader to teach and work. Well, if you are a team leader, team leader is very necessary. Sportsaz paid and bonuses.
There are still

business trips ... We are looking for a man like you for the last two years.

What's wrong?

It's the economy, stupid (c) Bill Clinton

The basics of a market economy:

Entering the market, we find ourselves in the position of either a buyer or a seller, and the labor market is no exception. If demand exceeds supply, then sellers set the tone in the market. And when supply exceeds demand - buyers.

The basics of a market economy for recruiters:

If there are fewer vacancies than offers, then potential employees compete among themselves for the vacancy, trying to please, and the employer selects the one who suits him best.

If there are fewer candidates than vacancies, then employers are already competing for potential employees, and they choose the best offer.

Demand for good programmers is higher than their number; therefore, programmers set the tone in this market. And the task of the recruiter is to interest the programmer so that he comes for an interview.

The task of the recruiter is to interest a potential employee, and not roll him a set of his requirements.

You don’t have to do this:

Comrades recruiters, do not write about what you want. This is not interesting to anyone. Example:

So what to do?

“I love strawberries with cream, the fish loves a worm. When I go fishing I don’t take strawberries with cream with me, but take a worm. ” Dale Carnegie.

Think not of yourself, but of the person you are looking for. Interested in a potential customer. Tell him about all the benefits that he will receive by agreeing to your offer. And after / if a person is interested, tell him what he needs to do for this. For example, send you a detailed resume.

These are not the requirements of the “snickering programmer,” but the foundations of a market economy.

If you want to interest a person in your proposal, then why do you start a conversation with what you need from him? Offer him what he wants. Here are the things that are likely to interest an experienced programmer who knows his worth:

1. Interesting project
2. Work near home
3. Large and spacious office
4. Friendly team
5. Decent cash compensation
6. Business trips abroad at the expense of the company

Interesting project

Please note that you cannot offer a potential employee an abstract “interesting project” and “friendly team”. After all, people are different: what will be interesting to one will not be interesting to another. If a person is interested in Hadoop, they may not be interested in HTML5.

It is best to give a full description of the project in the hope of interest in the person. The more people read such a description, the greater the chance that someone will be interested. (See. Sales funnel )

This also applies to a friendly team. If they tell me about a friendly team, this does not mean that we will have common interests and / or they will become my friends. Pushkin also had friends, but I'm not sure that we would find a common language with him.

Better write that one of the potential colleagues is interested in rafting, two or three times a year go skiing, and the rest every Friday gather in the office to eat pizza and drink beer with a guitar.

It's nice to listen to a smart person, you can talk to a stupid person

Everyone needs good programmers. Therefore, they rarely sit idle and wait for your offer. They just have nothing to do, how to spend half a day and go through the whole city so that you tell them about your wishes.

Suppose such a person posted a resume on the Internet. In the first week he received 10-20 offers. And yours is among them. Here's how the analysis of such proposals occurs:

- These have not even indicated the city. Haha.
- These immediately offer a test task. Just for a day. Yeah, I have nothing more to do.
- Description of the project in two sheets. Well, who will read more than a couple of paragraphs?
- And here is just one line. Yeah Informatively, you will not say anything.
- A young and fast-growing company. Oh my God! One time was enough. We delete.
- Oh, and here Vasya works for me. I’ll write to him - let him tell you what kind of project.
- But these salaries weren’t even indicated. Do not want to talk and do not. We delete.

Recruiters! If you write in vacancies only about what you need from the candidate, and from what is potentially interesting to him - do not write anything, then write at least a salary. Listing the list of duties and not specifying the amount of compensation is very stupid, don’t you?

An offer you can’t refuse.

Programmers, it would be nice to read something like that in the project description, right?
We do not want to publicly talk about our project, but it is very promising. Let our recruiter come to you at a time convenient for you to have a casual conversation, talk about our company and answer all your questions.
We understand that we are wasting your personal time. How about meeting him at lunch or dinner. (which our company will pay as a sign of respect, as compensation for the time you spent).
Also, if you have the opportunity and desire, you can come to our office, and the person who leads the project will tell you about it.

Bonus

One more tip. You offer a person to quit a company where he already has acquaintances and friends. Changing jobs is always stressful. Think about how to smooth out this negative point.
We understand that a job change is a serious step and we are grateful to you. Therefore, we are ready to provide you with a bonus of your choice:

1. gigabit internet
2. server for your pet-project
3. separate office
4. a trip to any IT conference in the world
5. personal secretary
6. modest monetary compensation

Mutual respect

Talk about what worries a person.
Our company really appreciates when you sacrifice personal time for the sake of work. And although overtime is paid only after agreement with the management of the company, but if you stay at work for more than two hours, you can take a taxi home at the expense of the company.

The ideal workplace

You won’t believe it, but most good programmers love to work. Otherwise, they would not have reached such heights in this matter. Therefore, most of them are looking for a place where they would be pleased and comfortable to work a lot.

Offer programmers ideal working conditions, and they will come to you.

Most often, this is a large and spacious office, where each person has about 10 meters of his personal space. Those. separate office or cube with an area of ​​3 by 3 meters.

Programmers love to work in silence. If more than 8 people are sitting in one room, then when the 2nd talk, 6 more are distracted. This is 3 times more than if 4 people were sitting in the room.

A person talking loudly in an open space on the phone distracts another 20 people from work. Moreover, these 20 fall out of the flow for at least an hour. Those. one call minus 20 man hours. Not to mention the nerves of people.


Do not need these huge rooms for rallies. Official rallies are very rarely needed - it’s impossible to decide anything, the maximum is to report on the work. And the most important decisions are made as a result of constant discussions in an informal atmosphere. Small rooms are needed for communication with drawing boards. And, perhaps, with tea and cookies, so that people often run there.