How to hire a Python Developer

As specialist recruiters working in the Python and Django community, our role isn’t just to find developers for our clients. It’s also to help them improve their processes to allow them to hire the best people available.

We spend a lot of our time talking to people going through multiple job interview processes and one thing really stands out!

The companies with the best processes understandably are the ones making great hires for their Python teams. These companies typically have the most flexibility in their process and are definitely the most committed to making a hire.

Money isn't always the deciding factor as to why you can't hire. Almost every time, it's having a poor process!

These are some of the do's and don'ts to consider:

✅ Review profiles quickly

❌ Sit on profiles and wait for more "to compare"

✅ Book calls with candidates who only hit some of the requirements

❌ Reject people without actually asking questions about the profile

✅ Focus some of the initial call on cultural fit as well as technical

❌ Have a culture interview at the final stage

✅ "Selling" the position and company to the candidates at every stage

❌ Only ever asking the candidate why they want to work for you

✅ Invite successful people to the next stage during each stage

❌ Wait to complete all interviews before inviting to next stage

✅ Technical Testing that is used for a discussion during process

❌ Technical Testing that is PASS/FAIL

✅ Offering multiple ways for candidates to be tested on their knowledge

❌ Only offering one type of test

✅ Having multiple members of the team capable of conducting interviews

❌ Relying on the availability of one key decision maker

✅ Being available outside of normal working hours to conduct interviews

❌ Forcing candidates to take time off work to interview

✅ Booking a Final interview and all decision makers in attendance

❌ Booking further calls with other people after the "Final"

✅ Getting a decision/offer out within 24 hours of the final

❌ Taking several days to "collate feedback"

A few years ago there was a real shortage of talented Python Developers looking for work and you really had to polish your hiring skills to secure people for your teams.

With all the tech layoffs since then, hiring companies have been guilty at times of being complacent or lazy and giving the responsibility of interviewing to those who have never done it before.

Interviewing is a skill. Make sure you train your teams how to present your business in the best light and identify strong candidates at the same time. 9 times out of 10, having an extended process or too many stages is a sign that the employer doesn't have confidence in their own hiring skills.

In a recent YouTube video, Jon and Josh discussed the 30 day sprint to hire a Python Developer before the end of 2024. You can watch here

Hiring a Python Developer should be simple. Below is a short but effective process you can follow. Assume for now that you have your shortlist of candidates reviewed and ready to start speaking to them.

1. First Stage Interview
2. Technical Testing
3. Final Interview

These stages should give you enough time to get to know the developer, ensure they will fit your teams, understand (and test) their technical skills/knowledge and to see where their experience matches your job specifications.

Knowing how to make an offer is important. This should already have been discussed with the key people before the Final Interview to allow for a quick decision afterwards.

There will have been a budget set at the outset. Judge the candidate based on your own expectations and also on the parameters of their search. Receiving a job offer should be an exciting thing so make sure you pitch this right.

Things to avoid here are going in at the bottom of the range or their own expectations, along with offering an increase on completion of probation or after reaching a certain milestone. If you want to hire them, back them to achieve this.

Once the offer has been delivered and accepted make sure contracts are sent quickly (I’m sure you’ve picked this part up already) with the agreed start date and once signed you can move on to your onboarding.

If there is time, invite the new member of your team to meet some of their colleagues while they are working their notice. Make sure that if you need to send them any equipment that this is done with plenty of time before their first day.

Remember though all of this starts once you have found the right applicants to speak to, you'll still need to do the actual recruiting first. This means advertising your role(s) and reading through hundreds of resumes to create your shortlist of developers to interview.

We would normally recommend starting off with by inviting maximum of 5 developers to your interview process so that you can focus your time on providing a good experience to them.

There’s no hiding from it, this is the part of hiring for yourself that takes time. We recently received over 1400 applications for a remote Python/Django Developer role in the US and still provided a shortlist of the best 4.

Don’t worry though, the team at Foxley Talent spend all day, every day speaking to Python developers who are looking for work and we offer 3 services to our clients:

Talent on Demand - a retained search where we run a bespoke project for you to identify the best developer(s) for your business.

Talent Search - when you are looking to hire we can let you know who is active in the "market" at that time.

Contract Support - finding short/medium/long term support for your team if you win a big project or have a fast approaching deadline.

We would love to help you with your Python Developer hiring, as you can see - we really know what we are doing and could save you hours/days/weeks on your next hiring project.

If you want a free review of your current hiring process, job specifications or if you want to see how working with us can transform your hiring plans please get in touch via hello@foxleytalent.com