What are Some Creative Ways to Hire Mobile App Developers?

Sapo:

According to The State of Mobile, by 2021, there are 230 billion app downloads worldwide and this number is expected to reach 7.49 billion by 2025. In which, time spent using mobile phones for mobile apps accounted for 92.5%, while web browsers accounted for only 7.5%.

However, hiring a good Mobile App Developer is also tricky because it requires you to have expertise and knowledge in many fields.

If you are an investor, project manager, or startup business owner and don't know how to hire Mobile App Developer for your company.

This article will help you answer that question.

I. Who Is A Mobile App Developer?

Mobile App Developer is a person who creates, designs, updates and develops software applications for mobile devices. They are responsible for designing application modules to test their usability of these modules. Also, fix any issues that occur before launching the app on the website hosting the app.

II. Requirements And Skills For A Mobile App Developer

2.1. A Typical  Mobile App Developer Job Responsibility

A Typical Mobile App Developer Job Description would likely include all of the following responsibilities:

• Full application lifecycle support and development (concept, design, testing, release and support)
• Producing mobile apps on demand
• Troubleshoot and debug to optimize performance
• Interface design and optimization to improve user experience
• Together with the Product development team planning new features
• Ensure applications meet quality standards
• Research and recommend new products, applications, and technologies

2.2. Mobile App Developer Skills Must To Have

• In-depth knowledge of at least one programming language (Swift or Java)
• Worked with third-party libraries and APIs
• Understanding of OOP. design principles
• Analytical and problem-solving skills
• Teamwork skills
• Product portfolio and proven projects

III. Options To Hire Mobile App Developer

3.1. Work With Freelancers

This is a popular choice for small companies or short-term projects that need to hire people urgently. Currently, there are hundreds of freelancer websites in the world where you can hire and find a quality Mobile App developer to work for you.

Pros:

• Save time: time to search for candidates, time for candidates to start project implementation.
• Save money: Reduce fixed costs, and recruiting costs
• Easily find suitable candidates, who have a lot of experience, and can meet the requirements that the company's personnel cannot meet.

Cons:

• Language and communication barriers: Due to coming from all over the world, communication can be difficult and the partners may not fully understand, causing the product to have to be revised many times.
• Time barrier: Differences in time zones also make communication difficult.
• Difficult to manage due to working remotely

3.2. Assemble an In-House Team

 This option is the exact opposite of hiring a freelancer. Simply put, you hire employees to work at your company

Pros:

• Can control the entire development process and change at any time.
• Easy, direct communication and positive opinion building

Cons:

• Have to cover many fixed costs such as office, furniture, licensed hardware and software, employee benefit costs, etc.
• The recruitment process is often lengthy, costly, and difficult
• Need a team manager with many skills

3.3. Hire an Outsourcing Company

This is the easiest and fastest way to create an application - hire an IT company to develop it yourself. With this, you do not have to spend time recruiting people, office costs, or machinery, ... but still get a mobile app at a reasonable cost.

Pros:

• Wide selection of technology providers from around the world
• can get any technology that you need
• No management time and effort
• Start the project quickly
• Cost-effective

Defect:

• Language barrier and time zone difference
• The application after development may not be what you mean

IV. Common Challenges When Hiring  Mobile App Developers

4.1. Budget 

This challenge is always a difficult problem for the recruitment of any business. If you want to hire a good mobile app developer and get hired quickly, you need a big budget and vice versa.

The cost of hiring a mobile app developer is entirely dependent on your company's current situation and needs.

• If your app needs new, unique features, you'll probably need experienced developers.
• If your application only needs small, quick changes, you can hire freelancers.
• If you do not have enough personnel as well as costs, hiring an outsourcing company will not be a bad choice.

In general, the first thing before starting to recruit, clearly determine the budget that can pay for recruiting and how much to pay the developer to be able to recruit people most effectively.

4.2. Time zone distances

IT companies often use communication tools like Slack, Teams, etc., and project management tools like Jira, Trello, etc. However, these tools only allow remote team members to update tasks and wait for them to check for those messages or tasks.

This challenge is often encountered when companies hire freelancers and outside companies. This means that your remote teams will not always be able to access the project, nor will changes be persistent. It causes the original project milestones to not be implemented as planned.

4.3. Lack of face-to-face communication

Controlling the working process as well as regular changes and updates is essential. However, it becomes a big challenge for companies when they hire application developers to work in another country.

Not only facing language barriers in communication but also having many limitations when you cannot communicate directly. Because anyway, if you sit and work together, surely the views will be shared clearly, frankly, and quickly find the right direction to solve the problem.

4.4.  Different cultures

It is a fact that mobile application development companies are mainly located in Eastern European countries, Israel, India, China, and South Asian countries. While major customers are often located in the United States and Europe, this also leads to cultural and geographical differences due to the physical distance between your organization and remote developers.

Therefore, different times such as holidays and holidays can also slow down the work progress.

4.5. Large companies with better offer 

Part of the difficulty in recruiting Mobile app developers for employers is due to the fierce competition in the industry today. Almost every company needs developers and of course, companies try to offer different perks or perks to attract the best talent.

It is a fact that, today, candidates, including Mobile app developers, are looking for a job for more than just a competitive salary. They also consider other factors such as benefits, company culture, and career development opportunities.

According to a study by CareerBuilder, there are many factors that determine the candidate's acceptance of an offer such as: Regulations on casual wear (36%); Employee discount (31%); Flexibility to work remotely (25%). Paid time off (22%); Signing Bonus (21%), etc.

V. Some Creative Ways To Hire Mobile App Developers

5.1. Tips for hire Mobile App Developer:

Before proceeding to hire, make sure you can assess their capabilities. This can be done in a number of ways such as

5.1.1. Ask for samples of their previous work

This allows you to gauge the candidate's actual skills immediately. See if the code they write is correct, readable, and efficient.

However, it's not a good idea to ask them to code during the interview, as the time is often too short and causes unnecessary stress.

5.1.2. Test their programming skills

You can use platforms that offer coding challenges like Codility or HackerRank. These applications can somewhat classify as well as try to separate the creativity of the candidate without spending too much time.

5.1.3. Prior phone interview

After the CV round, if you find them suitable for the company, or have more things to discuss. Don't hesitate to pick up the phone and talk to them. Possibly non-technical questions, simply more understanding of people and their personalities.

5.1.4. Ask them to build something related to your product:

This is a pretty good test to see the candidate's understanding of the company as well as the candidate's desire to apply.

You can have them develop a small piece of your site, build a rudimentary product, or test something out for a few days to validate their skill set.

5.1.5. Request a list of past and current customers:

Candidates tend to give information about people who have a good opinion of them. However, checking in with other clients will help you gauge exactly the work they have done and their attitude towards the work.

5.2. Some Creative Ways To Hire Mobile App Developers

In addition to the usual skills questions, you can refer to some more tips that few people notice such as:

• Talk directly or facetime with candidates:

From voice, face to body language, all can help you gauge if this candidate is a good fit. Besides, there will be many sharings that are easily told when we talk to each other

• Find out about their consistency.

Ask them about their favorite programming language and why they love it. The way they respond will reveal a lot about them. If someone has a strong opinion on a subject, they are very passionate about that topic.

• Check out candidate projects on GitHub.

This will give you insight into their mindset and passion code. As well as the contributions they make to the industry at large and open source projects.

• Find out about the projects they have and haven't completed. And ask for details about what happened...

This question will help you see their ability to communicate and present problems. This is very important, as they will not only communicate with you, but also colleagues and customers. It will be difficult if they can't or don't want to express it to anyone

• How did they improve coding? How good are their coding abilities?

My advice is: when stuck between similar candidates, hire better writers.

• You can give candidates the opportunity to try a job for about 1-2 months. 

If they do the job, they totally deserve it. If not, you can pay 50% or even free if they can't get the job done. Of course, these were all clearly agreed upon from the start

VI. Last words

As can be seen, the process of recruiting a mobile app developer is not easy. To find the best candidate for your project as well as your company, the first thing you need to do is set out the important factors and strategies that you need to keep in mind.

Hopefully, with the information in this article, you can easily avoid the mistakes many business owners make when hiring a mobile app developer and have creative tips of your own.