When growing your software team internally, hiring the best talent for your business is crucial. Vetting is an essential part of hiring the best developer for you, but not everyone does it well alone.
Once you leave the vetting process up to professionals, you will know that the developer you hire will be selected carefully and tested for their skills in-depth and offers high quality, because they went through detailed surveys, analyses, testing forms, and similar. At Proxify, we take the vetting process to a whole new level with outstanding quality and careful selection of developers.
In this article, you can read more about the vetting process of Proxify. Everything from how our specialists start the process, choose candidates and assign tests to how we complete the developer vetting process to the utmost quality to our clients.
What is vetting of developers?
The vetting process is when a hiring or acquisition expert conducts an in-depth check of the technical and soft skills of a developer, as well as their language skills, personal traits, and other possible conditions that would be required for them to work for a company or project
Vetting is more than just interviewing: it encompasses more detailed analyses of the candidate and their experience instead of just a few questions on a call. It includes a background check of all expertise areas of the candidate, their knowledge and professional skills, experience, and all related factors along the way.
What follows after the vetting process is concluding whether or not the candidate will be hired as the final step of the process.
Before joining the Proxify network
There are specific steps we take as part of the vetting at Proxify. In a way, our selection and vetting start right away. We receive a lot of applications every day, but just the best of the best lucky 2% make it—the best developers who go through vetting in detail.
1. Self-assessment quiz
A self-assessment quiz aims for the candidate to see clearly whether they have the relevant skills, strengths, weaknesses, goals, abilities, and more.
This is a crucial part of our vetting process because, without it, nobody would get the chance to check whether they are a good match for the company from the start. In a way, the self-assessment test is a survey process for past work experiences and professional backgrounds. This step is much needed, especially when discussing thousands of applicants and many volumes of applications received.
At Proxify, the self-assessment quiz means that the applicant provides the essential info on their experience, such as their skills, English language proficiency, social media links (optional), and of course, the CV/resume.
2. Technical quiz and screening interview
A technical quiz is a common and valuable practice in the interview process for developers. The goal is to test specific hard skills related to particular technical abilities for that specific developer role. Its purpose is to test the core of the developer's expertise, straight to the point, in practice.
Hence, step 2 is a technical check and screening interview. Here we take the discussion forward, and we find out a lot. Our talent acquisition specialists test a specific set of skills; they see the English language proficiency and inquire about past experiences.
At Proxify, this phase includes a quick call with the preselected candidates that meet the minimum criteria, such as commercial experience with relevant skills. During this call, the recruiter describes Proxify‘s business model; they observe the candidate’s motivation, soft skills, and English proficiency. If the candidate seems like a good fit, the process goes forward.
3. Code test
To go into even more in-depth specifics after the technical quiz, the next stage is a code test, with an even more narrowed down and precise skill testing. In a code test, the developer has to identify all bugs and issues of functionality and all sorts of errors that could be found in every code line given.
So, the third step is a more specific, hands-on code test—practical testing of what candidates know. Here we pay attention to the most crucial specifics—we rely on a test challenging enough to confirm the expertise in coding.
When we asked Proxify’s Head of Talent Acquisition, Alexis Komarov, to explain the need of a code test he stated:
“There is a timed coding test that is adapted for the skills of that candidate and, more precisely, the role for which they apply. For example, React.js + Node.js for the full stack developer is a valid test. We send the developer a link with the test via email, and this email is active for five business days. At Proxify, we use a 1-hour to 1.5-hour-long test instead of home assignments because this saves the developer some time.”
4. Technical interview
This technical interview is a common practice for the software, science, or engineering roles and for testing the knowledge of such experts in their field of expertise and their abilities to resolve issues within a limited timeframe.
At Proxify, the technical interview process is conducted by the engineering managers. They do an extensive evaluation of the candidate's technical abilities and evaluate all their problem-solving skills within a timeframe of 1-hour interview.
“There are several formats, including the short one (25 minutes) and a long one (55 minutes) of technical interviews, and these depend on the maturity, experience, and test results of the candidates. During this phase, we ask the candidate questions about how they would approach a problem or solve it, and we expect them to answer from a business perspective.”, Komarov explains the ins and outs of the technical interview.
5. Final review
The final review is as precise as it sounds—the moment when everything from the interview phases is summed, evaluated, and checked before a final decision to move forward with a candidate or not is made.
In our case, the team of Proxify is responsible for the interviewing and hiring processes. It evaluates every stage of the interviews and the vetting to ensure consistency of quality and every crucial aspect of the perfect candidate.
At Proxify, we believe this final part is integral for evaluating a developer at all stages during the hiring process. The developer is assigned a grade on a 26-point scale, from D, C-, C, C+, to A+, AA-, AA, AA+, AAA.
The grade is crucial for evaluating the developer's skills, and if they are a good fit, that will be as such for the time to come.
Matching the right developer for you
At Proxify, an excellent and devoted team of client managers takes care of the clients within our database to ensure that every client receives the best possible service or developer and keeps up the high standard of service.
The client managers nurture regular communication with clients in need of developers; they gather feedback and facilitate this same quality communication for the time to come.
The role of a client manager is to match the perfect developer to the clients and ensure that the clients receive flawless service from all involved. When a client manager matches the developer to the company or client, they pay attention to:
Experience and soft skills
A client manager must ensure that the candidate has the relevant skills and expertise suitable to the client that needs to hire a developer. A client manager here usually asks about previous experiences. They also pay attention to the soft skills and the English proficiency to decide to move forward.
Presentability
Another factor that is not as trivial as it might sound is the presentability itself. Whether the developer logs in on time or is late for the interview matching process, whether the developer looks and behaves presentably and professionally within their conditions.
Availability
Along with these factors above, availability is also discussed. The more availability the developer has or the client needs, the better. Most of the time, there are almost no issues with the number of working hours available—part-time or full-time both are always accepted. Sometimes, rarely, we look for a midground solution such as 20-30 hours maximum per week.
Cultural and overall compatibility
Lastly, cultural compatibility is another important factor. To ensure that the developer is going to fit in that particular company with the client, there are several aspects to consider.
Our client manager at Proxify, Peter Nienhuis, stated:
“Above all, the technical skills are the most crucial ones to determine if the developer is a fit. As I interview them, I rely on their CV or resume and pay attention to their soft skills and English language. If I see a good potential for the expertise and soft skills, these are good signs that the developer will fit nicely into the client's company culture.”
The takeaway
At Proxify, we never cut short on dedication and attention to detail, starting from the hiring managers, talent acquisition, and client managers, all the way to the dedicated developers that will become part of your team.
Everyone involved in the hiring process goes through numerous interviews, discussions, and tests to determine if a developer is an excellent match for a client. The vetting process at Proxify is outstanding, with every aspect tested and checked, and no room for incomplete information or superficial testing. Our vetting process is one of the things we are incredibly proud of in our company.
Interviewing, vetting, and hiring are not processes to be taken lightly. Still, we manage to do the perfect job by saving time for hiring and also, at the same time, working to assess developers and match them with clients in no time and with excellent results.
