7 Helpful Tips to Hire the Best Talent Out There!

Admittedly, this is a little self-serving, but I see it as a huge issue and you are overlooking really great candidates and hurting your business in the process if you do a few things listed below. I have been in search for my next really awesome position and have been interviewing and applying like crazy! These things below are some things I noticed along the way that are not helping, in fact, it seems to be a widespread disease among tech companies, let me illuminate.

Why am I qualified to talk about this subject? Well, for starters, I ran a tech company downtown Salt Lake City, Utah for a number of years and we had a great talent pool of developers in-house and together we could build anything. Before that time and after I have been intimately involved with the hiring and recruitment of talent in the tech industry for numerous companies both local and internationally. There are a few glaring issues that need to be corrected for a greater pool of talent to exist in your search for the perfect person.

Below are the 7 Helpful Tips, a short list of observations in either trying to find qualified good people or in putting myself out there to search for my next awesome position. I am in the space between projects/jobs at the moment and maybe this list could help you improve your filtration processes and land the candidate that will take your company to new heights!

1. Stop putting a college degree or equivalent experience as a requirement in the job description. It is misleading, it gives hope to those that do not have a degree that you really might consider them if they have the experience. Not all companies are the same but most companies I have dealt with put the experience line in there to get more applicants but really don't intend to hire someone without the stated degree. Guess what, what you are hiring them for they didn't learn with that degree, they learned it from experience in the field and ongoing training, not the antiquated Computer Science Degree.
2. Is a degree or certification even really necessary? In my opinion, the answer is absolutely not! Nothing trumps experience and I am talking about on the job real-life experience not stuff you build in a garage and claim to have 10,000 hours in, real life is where the value is. If you are weeding candidates based off this, you are missing out on the best talent in the industry. You can send them to school to get their cert if that's what you need or want to make your board have warm fuzzies, but it's not necessary, If someone can show you their skills and demonstrate by past reviews, testimonials, letters of recommendations and some well-written tests then who cares about a piece of paper that only means they were able to memorize a few details and get a passing grade. Do you know how easy it is to forge a cert or degree? Do you know how easy it is to hire someone to do your homework? Do you know how easy it is to google your answers? A degree doesn't mean anything except that you have a student loan to pay off too.
3. Post the salary or hourly rate! Stop the DOE line! If you are going to pay someone for that position between $50,000 and $80,000 DOE then that's great, now there is a range, if you don't put an amount in there that's like saying, "come in, the water is warm, we might give you what you want, but you won't know till you have groveled and washed our feet first." Come on, be completely transparent about this, it's important. I don't want to waste my time applying for a job if it won't pay what it should or what I need.
4. Too many job descriptions are copied and pasted from another and not original or relevant to the position. I can't tell you how many job descriptions I have gone through with a fine tooth comb, line by line, that were so vague and ambiguous that it seemed I would be running the entire company if I were really going to be doing all those things. More research should go into the description and reviewed by those doing that job not copied from some other company that has the same job title, that's lame, and also wastes a lot of time.
5. Interview process and wait time. Make this absolutely clear! Make a schedule! Set proper expectations! Many of those looking for work have a specific life and death timeline to find work and start receiving some sort of compensation. The ongoing, "Oh we'll call you for the next step once we have reviewed everything, it all looks good, but we'll call you IF we think you could be qualified". Have set timelines, have set start dates, from the start, listed in the description! Dragging the process on and on just leads someone on and gets their hopes up, it's rude.
6. Being Overqualified: This is another personal pet peeve, I am overqualified for the majority of the roles I have applied for but guess what, if I didn't want to do the job I wouldn't have applied in the first place! Stop judging people by their over-experience, it's rude and well rude. This makes no sense to me, you should feel flattered that someone with obvious more talent for the position would work for you at the rate you are posting. The number one comment I get is, "But as soon as you find something else that more fits your level of expertise then you'll quit here and go there". True! That is possible! There is a solution here though, offer that person more! Show them you want them and are willing to put your money where their talent lies. It's not going to hurt your company to give that person more money to be a great asset to your team and bring much more value to it than you are paying for. For me, this one is a no-brainer, if you don't have the budget then get it! So what if I have run companies, started my own, been C-Level, does that mean I can't be anything down under in the hierarchy? Doesn't that mean I have more humility and respect than others since I have been there before if I am willing to work under my qualifications?
7. Last but not least, sorry this one really makes my blood boil. Stop discriminating against those who have had a business or have been a freelancer. I know what the issue is, you think they are going to jump ship the moment they get a "gig" that pays a lot more right? Ok, yes, some will, but so will some employees also. Freelancers are the heart and soul of the tech world, they are the innovators, the risk takers, the heat under the blood that boils for self-gratifying awesomeness. We are the ones that think outside of the box, hell, we created the boxes sometimes! More times than I care to admit I was overlooked because I am an entrepreneur and freelancer to boot. You are a completely inept hiring manager or company owner if you eliminate true talent based off this one single thing, it is hypocritical at best, as you are what you are discriminating against, someone with the spine to start a business.

Disclaimer: Some positions should absolutely require a cert or degree due to the nature of the position such as a Medically related position for instance, not all Jobs can get out of this, but maybe we should take a hard look at a trend that has proven to be horribly discriminatory and well, did I mention rude? The Tech Industry is not just different, the geeks and nerds of today have some serious talent that should not be overlooked!

I would appreciate your insight and feedback! Agree or Disagree just don't be rude ;)