Sometimes recruiters are not to blame for the fact that vacancies remain open for a long time. The same is true for IT candidates who are legible and unwilling to change jobs. The problem of long-term open vacancies often appears due to the wrong strategy and approach to recruiting in a company.

According to the pattern of many businesses, if a vacancy is not closed in the first month and a half. It will most likely be open for another six. Because of this, many companies are turning to outsourcing professionals like Grid Dynamics full-stack developers. This saves energy, time and money.

But if you’re still determined to hire a full-time developer to join your team, find out what mistakes you can make and how to avoid them.

Wrong organization of the recruiting process

Many companies set up to 10 stages of interviews and don’t see this as a problem. However, they must understand that in this case, candidates will be interested in such a vacancy only if the offer is really interesting or with a high salary. Recruiters have long negotiations to convince the candidate that their position is worth it, and if after that they are offered six stages of selection and a test task for several days, don’t be offended when they refuse.

Today, even Google only runs 4 stages. The main disadvantage of too long interviews is the loss of interesting candidates. Many are not ready to wait and waste their time.

Ignoring restrictions on the candidate market

Managers often expect to receive roughly the same number of resumes each week. However, it is worth considering the limitations of the market. There are positions for which a maximum of 200 candidates are available. At the same time, 80% of them may not be considering offers now. If you don’t quickly hire one of the remaining 20%, you will be left alone with an open position.

And the quality of the resume is also not the same. Managers sometimes use the first candidates they get just to “watch”. They don’t take them seriously and think that the deeper they dig into the market, the more talented programmers they will find and invite to the company. Because of this, the first 3-6 resumes are specialists who will definitely not be hired for a position. And in vain.

Lack of understanding of what kind of specialist is needed

It happens that companies themselves are not sure what kind of developer they need. Then the first resumes really serve as a kind of tool so that the recruiter and the hiring manager or technical specialist in the team understand each other correctly.

As we said above, if you don’t hire one of the first suitable candidates, then over time you’ll get very few of them. Then you’ll have to reduce the requirements of the position, start working on the market again and work on even less suitable specialists. But their number is limited, so this process can be repeated several times. This way you can get into the “time loop” of recruiting and create a truly eternally open vacancy.

Tight budget per position

The salary market in IT is growing by 5–20% per year. Programmers are often lured away to more favorable conditions and offered salaries above the market. So don’t be surprised when a candidate asks for $1000 over your tight budget.

It is wrong to focus only on the DOU calculator or payroll research. The fact is that they are compiled according to the figures that are on the market now, and if you lure a candidate from their current job, then most likely they will ask for a higher salary.

The task of the company is to offer a flexible sure bet for a position. When you turn down suitable candidates because of their requests, calculate what will be more expensive: pay more for the right specialist or hire someone weaker, but in your salary expectations? The more time spent hiring, the less chance you have of hiring the desired tech stack developer within budget.

To sum it up, you should always be clear about what kind of candidate you are looking for, don’t set a million rounds of interviews. And don’t scare capable developers away from your company with too low budgets. Respond quickly to letters and resumes, keep the hiring process at a good pace and promptly give talented programmers feedback letting people know that they appreciate their interest and are ready to cooperate.