
number of enthusiastic graduates. Companies also need to invest in experienced engineers with coding expertise â of which there is a limited pool. In fact, 61% of HR professionals reported that finding qualified developers would present their biggest recruitment challenge in 2021.
Tip: Itâs not always about the number of candidates who apply. The best way to hire the right people is often from a smaller pipeline of more qualified talent. Research what motivates candidates, and with this knowledge, personalise your sourcing emails to describe what you can offer them instead of what they can do for your company.
2. Longer Hiring Times Means Higher Recruitment Costs
A 2019 study showed that it takes 50% longer to hire talent for tech roles than other positions. The typical recruitment process for software developers looks like the following:
- Sourcing: Reach out to passive and active candidates
- Screening: Determine which candidates have the skills you require
- Technical test: Assess the skills using coding exercises
- Interview: Talk one-to-one with the candidate to determine if theyâre the right fit for the company
- Offer: Extend an offer to your first-pick
In an ideal world, every successful candidate who is presented with an offer will accept it. However, in reality, a potential employee is highly likely to reject the offer â particularly in the UK software industry, where the demand for software developers is soaring. Therefore, the recruitment process may need to be repeated several times.
In the UK, the average time to hire tech specialists is 55 days, although the process can take months depending on the circumstances. With all this time spent on hiring, productivity within the company takes a nosedive, meaning a loss in revenues.
Tip: Evaluate your hiring process to weed out any bottlenecks. Ask yourself, are you replying to candidates quickly enough? Are all the steps in the hiring process required? You can also use tech to automate certain parts of the process, such as CV screening tools and programming assessments.
3. Competitors with Better Offers
There arenât many companies out there that donât need software development talent. Everything is online nowadays, and technology is here to stay. But higher demand means thereâs a higher risk of competitors poaching quality candidates.
Software engineers with in-demand skills are highly sought-after, and recruiters may offer better wages and benefits to entice them to apply to their company instead. The risk is even higher when the hiring process is so long.
Talent poaching poses a significant problem for companies, as it drives up employee expectations making it difficult for companies to compete with those with larger budgets. Business leaders need to increase salaries, expand benefits packages and add perks such as flexible working to become a viable option for potential employees â which can be expensive, particularly if the ROI of the employee isnât sufficient.
Tip: Consider which unique perk you can offer to stand out from the competition. For example, you could offer a career progression roadmap, training and development opportunities, or a hybrid work setup.
4. A Lack of Formal Computer Science Education
Across the globe, programming enthusiasts are turning to âcode bootcampsâ to get them on the software development job ladder. Organisations like CodeSmith offer immersive courses lasting a few months, helping students gain the skills they need to get a job in the tech industry.
However, graduates from code bootcamps face an uphill battle with how theyâre perceived by employers. According to Digital Ocean, almost half of bootcamp graduates say they have sometimes been at a disadvantage because of it during interviews.
In addition, even though graduates of these courses are helping to fill the demand for software developers, some companies still prefer hiring university graduates. Not only is this to the disadvantage of enthusiastic bootcamp graduates, but recruiters are limiting their talent pool even further, overlooking potentially highly-skilled developers.
Tip: Use AI tools to eliminate the risk of unconscious bias and assess all applicants equally. Alternatively, look beyond education when making hiring decisions. Thereâs nothing to suggest that university-educated candidates are any more capable than bootcamp graduates. In fact, bootcamp graduatesâ may slot better into the working environment as they have prior experience working in a software team as well as a portfolio of relevant projects.
The Benefits of Including Technology in the Software Developer Hiring Process
The most efficient way to overcome the challenges of recruiting quality developers is to integrate technology into the software developer hiring process.
Take, for example, BlueOptimaâs Predictive Assessment tool. Our solution combines programming tests, granular insights into the candidateâs current performance, and the added bonus of predicting candidateâs expected productivity.
This kind of technology offers a host of benefits to tech recruiters, including the following:
- Streamlined hiring process. Using tech, recruiters can speed up the hiring process, saving time and money for the business. For example, our Predictive Assessment tool automates previously manual tasks such as checking task/test answers.
- Removal of bias. When you use technology to grade programming tests, you can ensure that you get a completely unbiased view of the candidateâs skills. Plus, by taking into account factors such as coding efficiency â and not just the final result â you can get a better overview of the candidatesâ coding abilities, which leads to fairer hiring decisions.
- Better candidate experience. When you reduce the time spent on hiring and evaluate candidates fairly, chances are potential employees will have a better opinion of your company â which is critical to retaining talent.
- Lower risk of mis-hires. By leveraging analytics to evaluate your potential candidatesâ future performance, you can ensure that they are a suitable fit for the job in the long term.

Employee Retention: Why Software Developers Look Elsewhere
So far, weâve covered sourcing top talent. The next step is to look at retaining them â which proves a significant challenge in the software development industry.
Here are just a few of the reasons software developers leave their jobs for pastures new:
- A lack of purpose. As with other professions, software developers can sometimes feel like just another cog in the machine â a part of the furniture. But growth and purpose is a major part of job satisfaction, and without it, software developersâ interest in their work can fade, driving them to other companies. By creating a purpose-led organisation with opportunities for career development, businesses can enhance employeesâ experiences and improve retention rates.
- Pay. Although money isnât everything, if software developers feel like theyâre undervalued, thereâs nothing stopping them from finding a higher paying job elsewhere. Of course, this doesnât mean increasing everyoneâs pay, but if a workersâ salary isnât an accurate reflection of the value they create for the company, itâs not unreasonable to consider giving them a raise. Conduct regular salary reviews to ensure an employeeâs salary matches their performance, boosting satisfaction levels and loyalty to the company.
- Flexibility. Since the pandemic, employees across industries have experienced the benefits of remote working â and many in the tech industry donât want to give it up. In fact, research from CodinGame suggests that 70% of developers would like to work remotely if given the opportunity. Offering remote or hybrid working as an extra benefit may be the perfect way to retain top talent.
- Maintenance/minor upgrades. When software developers join companies, theyâre not (usually) going in hoping to work on tedious maintenance tasks. If they have a particularly sought-after skillset, they may be wasted on such projects and find more exciting positions with other companies. Rotating software developers between maintenance and development tasks means employees can experience every part of the programming cycle to prevent bore-out and, hence, improve retention.
The Link Between Effective Onboarding and Retaining Top Talent
It may be surprising to learn that employees place significant value on their onboarding experience. It shapes their first view of the company. Therefore, if the process isnât streamlined, it can tarnish an employeeâs opinion of the company immediately.
Hereâs an example of a poorly implemented onboarding process for software developers:
Frank performed strongly through the interview process, showing strong interpersonal skills and submitting a well-executed work sample. Based on this performance, he is brought into the team. Frank experiences a disorganised and brief onboarding period. As his first project, he is tasked with fixing bugs. However, when he starts to make updates to remove the bugs, he struggles because his onboarding was poor and Frank doesnât have a clear understanding of the companyâs best practices, policies, expectations or procedures. There is a lack of information available to support Frank post-onboarding, as the company has not established a clear foundation to support their staff. Due to a lack of guidance on the company standards, he fails to adhere to processes, leading to confusion for both Frank and the team. The results are unmaintainable code that significantly increases the projectâs timeframes as Frankâs efforts impact other aspects of the code. Additionally, another developer is removed from their work to fix and improve Frankâs poor outputs. This leads to depreciating confidence, mounting stress, a negative team culture and starts to affect the entire teamâs output as they are having to compensate for Frankâs performance. Both the team and Frank are now in an uncomfortable situation, increasing the risk of Frank or other team members leaving.
In contrast, hereâs an example of an effective onboarding process, enhanced with AI:
Sarah is a new dev at the company. As a result of her interview, Predictive Assessment and CV, the hiring manager can accurately understand Sarahâs skill level. Sarah is then taken through a clear onboarding process that matches her position and outlines the processes, policies, expectations and practices of her role and team. This ensures a smooth onboarding and integration into a cohesive team. Sarah can also be appropriately supported through her career development as the initial testing with the Predictive Assessment tool was able to accurately identify areas of improvement and strength. Happy in her team, Sarahâs stress levels are low and her chances of thriving are high â enabling a smooth transition into what should be a great career opportunity. This increases her length of employment and also means that she was accurately chosen for the role.
Using AI to improve onboarding processes means that employeesâ skills are better matched to projects, ensuring theyâre satisfied and productive â a win-win for both the employer and employee.
Find Top Tech Talent with BlueOptima
If youâre in a bit of a recruitment slump, youâre not the only one. Itâs never been so difficult to attract (and retain) high-quality tech talent. Upgrade your software developer hiring process and leverage the power of technology with our Predictive Assessment tool to drive efficiency and identify high-performing candidates.
Hereâs what our Predictive Assessment tool, powered by AI, can do to enhance the recruitment process for software developers:
- Predictive reporting means the tool can predict a potential employeeâs productivity using Billable Coding Effort, ensuring a higher ROI of your employees.
- Deep code and behaviour analysis means it goes beyond evaluating the correct output to understand how robust a candidateâs solutions are and how efficiently the code consumes processing power and memory. This is critical for identifying top talent and assessing how candidates will perform on a real-world project.
- It serves as an intuitive platform for Candidate Management, letting you organise candidates into Job Roles for greater efficiency.
All in all, our solution can help you save time and money on your software developer recruitment process, helping to source the best and most suitable candidates for your business.
Start using the power of data to drive your hiring process and bolster your decision-making. Request a free trial of our tool today.
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