When any potential leads or customers arrive on your website, they should get the best user experience possible. However, a lot of websites have become outdated, especially those who not invested in regular design and feature upgrades. With web browsers making their own updates, your business site that was created some six or seven years ago might be in need of a makeover.

With that being said, do you have someone readily available to upgrade your business website? If the answer is no, then it’s worthwhile to hire someone internally in order to update the website and to maintain a great level of UX for your customers old and new.

In this article, you’ll learn all about the hiring process when it comes to finding a candidate that can help bring your website from the past, into the present.

The importance of hiring a web developer

A web developer is probably one of the most critical roles to have within your workforce nowadays. It’s estimated that there are 1.7 billion websites in existence on the internet, so that’s a lot of competition to compete with, even if not all of them are active.

94% of first impressions are related to your site’s web design and when first impressions count, it’s important to have a web developer who can present the best version of your business to those that come across it.

Choosing the right web developer is key, especially as the hiring process, in general, can be a costly expense. It’s not productive to waste your resources on hiring a candidate that ultimately fails to provide the results you need.

Before you begin…

Without jumping ahead and diving straight into the hiring process, you’ll first need to figure out what you need. There are some web developers that are multi-faceted in what they can do, with some able to design as well as develop. While experience is an important part to cover, the core skill and duties needed is something you’ll want to cover beforehand.

If you’re new to the world of web development, then it’s best to do a bit of research by looking at job advertisements for similar roles. This will give you a better indication of what you’re looking for and how to word your job advertisements so that they’re seen by the right people.

You also want to think about the budget you have for this individual. There are web developers and designers out there who will charge less but may not be able to meet the standards you require.

You may end up spending more than necessary and this is something that can easily happen even if you’ve not done any comparisons on the job market.

Create the job listing and post it strategically

The job listing that you create has to be detailed with your requirements and need as an employer.

On average, a corporate job post receives 250 resumes. This is a lot of effort to go through when it comes to filtering down your candidates. With that in mind, you want to create a job listing that’s concise and is going to have good, quality candidates applying that are fit for the job.

Once you’ve created the job advertisement, you’ll then want to post it on various channels and platforms. LinkedIn tends to be a popular choice for many when it comes to open job roles. It’s also a great place to connect with people in the industry.

There may be already someone that’s perfect for the role in your connections, or the role gets passed on to the right candidates.

Other places to consider are niche job agencies and boards online that are specific to web development. There are also lots of Facebook groups that will be specific to the development sector and could see an influx of applications just by joining the group and posting the ad there.

Conduct pre-employment skills tests

In order to test the abilities of the candidates, you’ll want to conduct pre-employment skills tests that will prove what they claim to know and can do, is true.

Surprisingly, there are a lot of people who will lie or stretch the truth to get themselves an interview. According to Statistica, of the 30% of people who exaggerate on their resumes, very few get caught. Whilst you may be able to do some due diligence, these pre-employment skills tests and other screening tests such as chasing references, are essential.

In the case of web development, a c# coding test can assess your candidates’ ability when it comes to programming a small algorithm in C#. This tests their basic programming skills, which they’ll need for the various objectives you have for upgrading your business website.

There are lots of different tests to consider and TestGorilla is a great platform for all types of skills testing, during this pre-employment phase. A candidate may look good from their resume but it’s important that they can prove they have the skills required, otherwise you’ll have to let them go and restart the hiring process again.

There are also candidates who perform better in tests, than the actual interview itself. You don’t want to miss out on potential candidates who may be perfect for the role but fell apart in their interview.

Think about the questions you need answering

The questions you ask during the interview are particularly important because they can help provide further insight into the candidate and their experience. Not only that but you can explore the candidate’s interests beyond just the role itself.

Having someone who has a passion for the job and for the company itself, is something you can discover with the right questions.

Within the tech and digital world, it seems skills are becoming a critical part of web development one minute and then becoming obsolete the next. With that said, you also want someone who is willing and able to adapt to change.

Here are a few suggestions for questions that you might want to ask your candidates.

• What are your resource for learning new tips and trends within the industry?
• Tell us about a project you’re particularly proud of.
• Have you attended any networking or technology conferences recently?
• Who is your role model in the tech world?
• Describe to us what makes the perfect website or app.
• How do you react to negative feedback?
• What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced in your career so far?

These are all relevant questions to both the role and beyond it. It pays to be clever with your questions and to really give them some thought before you start conducting the interviews. The last thing you want is to conclude the interviews and still have unanswered questions that will make choosing a candidate, difficult.

Select a candidate for a smaller project first

Even though you may have found the right candidate out of all those you’ve interviewed, it’s important to test the water with a smaller project first. This could be part of their trial period as you assess their performance on a slightly less important project before offering them the bigger one.

A non-critical project is a great one to give to the candidate you’re hoping to keep permanently and can allow you to observe their actions to see how well they do. Just like the pre-employment skills testing, it’s another way to prove that they’re the right one for the job and that they can deliver all that you need successfully.

At this point, you can also see how well the final product has come together and you may find that testing their final product can tell you a lot about their skills and attention to detail. It’s a trait that’s important when it comes to website design. No one wants to have a site that’s buggy or underperforming for its users.

Consider freelancers if applicable

You may wish to hire a web developer in-house on a permanent basis but not all businesses may have a need for that or a budget for that matter. Instead, it might be that you simply want a website upgrading and that’s it.

It’s always good to consider freelancers if it’s something that may suit your budget and the business better. There are lots of freelancers out there in web design and development, but you may end up paying more in the long run. This depends on how often you need them as most freelancers will work with a day rate, rather than any long-term contract. If you’re looking for a more affordable option, you can check out https://dormzi.com and browse through a pool of talented students from top-tier universities to get quality help at a reasonable price.

Take your time, don’t rush!

The most important thing with any hiring process is to take your time. Don’t rush the process and hire a candidate that you’ll later regret. It’s not something you want to be wasting your money on by having to rehire.

Think about what you need as a business, draft up the perfect job advertisement and develop a great interview process that gets you all the answers needed to pick the right one for you.