A Simple Way To Recruit The Best Developers

It goes without saying that in winning the software battles against your competitors, the human element can be a great factor as to whether you dominate your market or settle for meager remains. After all, marketing and software development is done by people. Usually, the smarter they are, the more opportunities your company has to make a splash in the marketplace. Here’s one of the many ways a current Wall Street darling and software giant recruits the best of the bests and how you can too.

First, a friendly “mise en garde”. Quality personnel is a blessing no doubt about that, but do not be led to believe that this alone will be the key to your firm’s success. If you have a poor strategy but have the best team working for you, your company is still going to face some hardships no matter what amount of sweat is poured. On the other hand, with so-so employees, you can do very well as long as your strategy is tighter than a weight lifter’s arm.

So, assuming that you have a sound strategy worked out, let’s see how to snap the best in fast-rising developers using a tactic we’ll borrow from the almighty, can’t do wrong (for now) Google.

Today, I received an email from their press department announcing the Google Code Jam 2005. As a software developer, I am sure that you know what it’s all about. If you feel like participating, I certainly wish you all the best of luck because you can rest assured that the best of the bests will!

I really like the Code Jam as a promotional tool. First, a company benefits from the tremendous publicity. The media coverage can be pretty crazy if you think about it. Before the competition is announced, when it is announced, when it starts, how it progresses, how it finishes and what happens next and so many more opportunities. For the next two months, keep an eye on the media to see how much publicity the competition (and Google in the process) generates.

The pessimistic among you will be quick to say “Hey, we’re not Google and we can’t get that amount of money to give away nor we can easily attract as much media attention”. Well, find another excuse because that’s a poor argument . If you are creative enough, you will get the exposure especially in the Mac related media. I will not dwell over the ins and outs. That’s for another article.

Secondly and most important… Google obviously organized the programming competition around the issues it wants to solve most. This competition is like one way to get hundreds of talented developers to submit their résumés with the gentle help of the media.

Does this work? It works wonders! The Top Coder site says that a good number of contestants end up with some pretty good job offers from reputable companies. Will your company be one of them? Will any bright recruit help your firm prosper in these rather competitive times? The ball is in your court: make your move.