“We need to hire a developer to build/fix an app for us asap.” – you may think.

You are an early-stage startup founder and you need to get your mobile app developed and finished in 1-2 months. We won’t discuss if the mentioned deadline is realistic and will park this subject for future articles.

Technical recruitment has a lot of nuances, especially when it comes to preparing the job description. So let’s start with it.

You better be very specific about whom you need.

You have already scheduled a marketing campaign and want to let the world know about your great app. You have a little budget as it usually happens at the early stage and with a first startup.

You spoke to your friend who had some experience in the tech world. They told you to look for a Flutter Developer because that’s what is now hot on the market. They said you should develop your app in Flutter. Then host it on GCP (Google Cloud Platform) as in the long run that would save you a ton of money. Or you already have your Flutter app and you need to get external help to finish it asap.

“Ah, so we need to hire a Flutter Developer to build/fix an app for us asap.” – you may think now.

You open a freelance marketplace website and type in “Flutter Developer” in the search bar.

You have heard many times in the past about outsourcing to India, the Philippines, etc. You decide to filter on location and go for India. The list of freelancers becomes shorter but not that much. Remember the size of the Indian population?

You scroll through thousands of profiles. You see smiling faces, serious faces, mustaches, beards, glasses on, glasses off, ties on, ties off, t-shirts, shirts, and jackets from all over the globe.

No, it is not a dating site. But sort of…

You want to find a trusted technical partner for a long-lasting happy marriage. Pardon me. For long-lasting cooperation. You aren’t sure whom to choose from. So you turn to your last resource – rating stars and feedback to choose whom you would trust more.

You pick one profile after another, reading into their customers’ feedback. You check the details of the related job descriptions a freelancer or an agency performed until you come across with:

“These guys are great because they support our vision and help us reach our objectives and targets.” – the customer.

Is not that great when someone believes in you? Yes, and it feels awesome!

Did you know it is actually possible to negotiate what customer can put in their feedback?…

You don’t know the real story of those 100 hours they billed their customer for. Was the total of $2000 an investment or a total waste? Did they deliver on time? And if they did, was the app actually deployed to the app stores and became available for potential users? And if it wasn’t what were the problems? What if 1 month after their delivery, that code had to be rewritten from scratch to make it manageable to build new features on top?

You may feel overwhelmed when raising all those questions. No worries! I will help you here.

To ease your search for the right candidate, make sure to outline the essential requirements and nice-to-have ones at the basics.

A job description like “We need to hire a Flutter Developer to build/fix an app for us asap. Our budget is $20/h. We are looking for a long-term partnership.” won’t serve you well and, with a very high probability, you would lose your money and time in one way or another. With such a job description, you are basically playing gambling.

Define the job requirements and expectations before beginning the recruitment process. This way you will set yourself up to find the right fit for your team.

You have to be very specific. To help you make a better job description you may start answering the following questions:

1. What kind of developer are you looking for?
2. What is the level of expertise and experience, the essential skills and experience you need them to have for this job? Are you looking for a junior or senior developer? Do you need someone with experience in a specific industry, or niche, or with specific tools?
3. What their experience should be (e.g. years in that role, soft skills, similar projects, technologies, frameworks, etc.)?
4. What responsibilities should they have? What tasks should they perform (e.g. debugging, testing, deploying, collaborating with UX/UI designers, QA mates, etc.)?
5. What development process do you use in your company (e.g. Scrum, Kanban, Flights, Waterfall, etc.) and a developer to have an experience with? How should that work with their actual availability or timezone difference?
6. What level of English/French/Spanish do you expect of them? Should it be verbal? Or would communication in written English be enough for you?
7. What would be your main communication channels (e.g. chat at the freelance marketplace, Slack, Telegram, email, etc.)?
8. Will this be a full-time or part-time position? Do you need them to work specific hours or have a flexible schedule?
9. What working hours within your own timezone do you expect to be for a candidate to be in sync with your team? Or do you plan for an async collaboration?

Some questions for you to think about, usually for the interview stage:

1. What is your startup culture? What values do you have, and expect others to share with you? How could you test if they share similar values?
2. How are you going to communicate with them if you have a big time difference with them? How would that affect your team, if you got one, and their collaboration with a candidate?
3. Should they be online and be available all the time, part-time? Should they notify you if they leave their workplace? Do you have a remote lunch brake?
4. Do you already have at least 1 developer on your team that you are confident about? If yes, take them with you to the interview with the potential hire to ask other questions you could not come up with.

Take your time and define the job requirements and expectations. This way you can help make your recruitment process smoother and more efficient. As a result, the candidate will have a clear understanding of the role they are applying for. And you can make your interview less superficial minimizing the risk of hiring the wrong person.

And yet… There can be cultural differences that can also break your relationship.

This one is about the culture your candidate was born and raised or spent most of their life in.

There can be cultural specifics that you can do very little about. That can break your relationship and suck your money fast.

It is helpful to be aware of the cultural differences when it comes to hiring someone from a different culture, and how you are going to deal with them.

You may refer to Erin Meyer‘s book “The Culture Map” and Hoofstede Insights for more details on this subject. It’s a big one.

At an early-stage startup, there are simply too many unknowns and risks you are going to deal with.

Wouldn’t it be safer and easier for you to hire someone from a culture similar to yours or at least raised in the same culture as yourself?

There are a lot of nuances in technical recruitment. The same applies to recruiting other types of professionals.

You can peep at similar job descriptions on the job boards. But make sure your job description applies to the specifics of your startup.

You better be very specific about who you actually need to hire.

Wish you hire your next best mate!