Hiring developers is tough. More so when you're looking to hire offshore. At Cloud Employee we make it our goal to connect businesses worldwide with top offshore software developers in the Philippines.  We partner with startups, SMEs, and blue chip companies who want to reach a wider pool of tech talent they need to grow their business.

To help our clients make the right hiring decision, we asked our amazing tech recruitment team for tips that best guide them in the process of finding the right one. As Cloud Employee has helped over 70 international clients hire top developers in the Philippines, we are sharing the tips that have worked out best for us and our clients.

Clearly define what you’re looking for in your offshore developer candidates

Successful hiring starts with a clear profile of your ideal candidate. Before launching a search, list down the skills, attributes, and characteristics you’re looking for: tech stack, years of experience, tech specialization/expertise, tools/framework experience.

Further, refine this list. Identify the "must-haves" or the essential skills and experience from the "nice-to-haves", desirable skills and experience. Doing so helps you focus on the top requirement/s that your ideal candidate must satisfy and those which are not deal-breakers.

Provide your staffing partner with in-depth information about your requirements

Additional information provides context to your requirements. Include a description of duties and responsibilities, the team your offshore developer will be part of, the project/s they will be working on, and to whom they'll be reporting to. Round it off with a  company profile, a description of your company culture, and work practices.

Outside of the skills and experience requirements, this will give your staffing partner the bigger picture with regards to your job requirement and accordingly align their resourcing efforts.

Specify and follow a structured interview process

In screening your candidates, how do you hold your interview?  Do you test for general IQ? Do you interview for behavioural/situational intelligence? What interview tools or platform do you prefer to use?

Specify your preferred interview process. A structured approach will help you effectively identify the one you're looking for. Prepare a list of questions or topics that you want to talk about. Chris Sells, a Senior Product Manager at Google, did a series of articles on technical interviews. There's a handy outline of recommended practices for doing the technical interview from this roundtable of well-known developers over at Artima.

To make sure you don't miss anything important, prepare a checklist on the coverage and flow of your interview. Throughout encourage your candidates to ask questions as well.

Do technical testing

Doing technical tests when you hire developers is standard practice. This can be done via online coding test platforms: Codility, HackerRank, HackerEarth,  Interview Zen, TestDome, Talview, Tungl. There's plenty more you can explore so make sure to find one that suits your process. Some of these platforms also enable you to watch developers code in real-time.

A technical test shows how developer candidates walk their talk; more than words, it demonstrates how they approach a problem, what they do when they get stuck, how they document/comment their code, and more. Be mindful though about the difficulty of your test challenges. Candidates should be able to accomplish them in a reasonable time period.

Give your candidates a good reason to join your company

It's not all about your requirements. The hiring process goes both ways; while you interview and assess your candidates, they're also coming to a decision: is this a good company to work for?

When you hire, you’re also building your company's hiring brand. Thus, it is important to get it right from the get-go; be able to describe your company and its culture in the best light possible. Essentially, you’re pitching your company to get the talent you need.

What would make quality experienced Philippine developers want to join your company? Will it be the competitive pay you can offer them? The bleeding-edge project or tech stack they would want to work on? Your company's products and/or services? Your great company culture? The quality of the software engineering team when it comes to tools, work practices, and workflow?

Whatever it is, it should get them excited to work for you. Keep in mind: it's not just about the money on the table.

Hire for cultural fit

Ever had a hire who breezed through the technical tests, did well in the interviews, came highly recommended only to underperform 3 months later? Barring other reasons, a poor cultural fit probably got in the way.

Defined via SearchCIO, cultural fit is "the likelihood that a job candidate will be able to conform and adapt to the core values and collective behaviors that make up an organization."  If you are clear on your company's culture - its values, goals, practices - then you're better off with hiring candidates whose work ethics and values are similar or aligned with the company's. Here are interview questions you can ask to assess cultural fit.

Make hiring decisions fast

Finally found the right one who ticks all your requirements? Hire decisively. In today's competitive Philippine job market a talented Filipino developer actively looking for work has many options. Don’t let the right one get away.

These tips work best if you hire with the help of a staffing partner that gives you end-to-end control on the recruiting and hiring process. This is what we specialize in at Cloud Employee: a personalized service where the client has absolute control from recruitment to management of their offshore development team. We hope our hiring tips above lead you to landing the right tech talent you need to grow your business.

Ready to build your offshore developer team fast? Let Cloud Employee help! Talk to us, learn how Cloud Employee works, or check out our Developer Pricing Guide.  You can hire offshore developers with us across these technologies.