How to search for DevOps
We discussed how to search for Frontend Developers in the previous article. You can find all the useful information on this page, which will also help to fill the DevOps vacancy, as the sourcing strategies are almost universal for any position. Now we want to talk about where to look for devops, how to find them, and what to pay attention to.
In order not to repeat ourselves and dive into the topic, we asked our recruiting partner Anya for life hacks that will help facilitate sourcing and find a DevOps specialist faster:
The best recommendation [and this is what I do in my work] is to immerse yourself in the vacancy as quickly as possible and understand what kind of specialist is needed. This will help to quickly develop the right sourcing strategy and find the necessary specialist faster.
It is also important to use different search channels: passive, active, and not to forget about the recruiter's personal brand and networking, which are developed and yield results over time. Ideally, to detail the vacancy, ask as many questions as possible to the hiring manager, inquire about the project, vacancy, tasks, processes, clarify a couple of key important vacancy criteria.
This will provide an understanding of where to move first. For example, when I worked on my last vacancy, it was important to have experience in product companies and experience with a B2C product. Accordingly, this was my main criterion when developing a strategy and searching for donor companies.
Speaking in general, trying to work on various vacancies helps to expand horizons and easier to navigate the market. The more a recruiter is aware of the details, the easier the work, the more communications with candidates, the better you can understand what they like, what attracts them, what they value.
In the case of an unfamiliar vacancy, you can look for someone with such experience and get advice to launch the vacancy into work faster and understand where to go first. People are quite open to help in the IT sphere, sometimes I even turned to some candidates for help in clarifying some technical issues.
Knowing various tools greatly simplifies sourcing: for creating Boolean strings, for scraping, for sending mailings, for writing texts, for finding contacts.
Where to find DevOps engineer for the team
Our recruiting partner Vadym helps in finding the answer to this question.
Of course, the main source for finding IT specialists is LinkedIn [x-ray or boolean search - it doesn't matter]. You can do a little research on "donor companies" where DevOps specialists are most concentrated. If your sourcer/recruiter has recently done this, it significantly facilitates their search.
In our case at EvoTalents, it is not necessary, but quite useful to have a small document listing companies and the technologies/programming languages they use because not all companies work on the same technology stack.
Each company writes on something else. And when building a sourcing strategy, this document will make a very good contribution. Ideally, you should also check with the hiring manager from which companies they would like to receive candidates: product/outsourcing, etc.
Second in importance is the internal database of "warm candidates." If there are no warm candidates in the database or it is not updated recently, then it is more relevant to search higher up in LinkedIn immediately.
As a passive search, you can attract candidates using Dou, Djinni, Skyworker, Happy Monday.
If the company is very popular or well-known, of course, another passive channel is the internal website of the agency/company.
Finding and selecting a qualified DevOps professional for the team
In order to start communicating with a candidate, it is first necessary to determine whether they are truly relevant. If you are closing a vacancy for the first time and have no experience, this may be the first challenge you encounter.
What should you do to understand whether it makes sense to start or continue communicating with a candidate for a DevOps role [or actually any other IT position]? Anya, a recruiting partner at EvoTalents, shares her experience on this matter:
When it comes to initial stages, I first familiarize myself with the candidate's profile on LinkedIn or their resume: I review their companies, projects, periods of work, total experience, technology stack, job titles, education (especially if it's important for the vacancy), in general, I assess how well the candidate roughly fits the vacancy.
Candidates do not always update their profiles in a timely manner, so if I don't find a particular technology, I always clarify this information additionally. For such cases, I have prepared additional questions. Candidates may have not updated or there have been cases where they might not have worked with something on a commercial project, but had learned and tested it for themselves, for example, on their pet project - and this turns out to be sufficient for us.
Of course, much more information can be obtained during the interview - live communication is the best way to get to know someone, and we can clarify a lot about the candidate's experience, tasks, projects, and understand their soft skills.
Reasons to turn to EvoTalents Agency when seeking DevOps
Instead of delving into all the details of our strengths, we want to simply confirm them with one of our cases. After all, actions and results speak louder than words.
Business Context
At the time we began collaboration, our client lacked an internal IT recruiter. However, the company was poised for growth, thus needing assistance in filling several DevOps vacancies, as well as QA, Full-Stack developers, and Cybersecurity specialists.
Solutions
- We chose to work in an RPO format. This allowed our recruiter to become a fully integrated member of the client's team for the duration. They had direct contact with Hiring Managers and fully immersed themselves in addressing the client's unique needs.
- As a recruiting agency, we provide weekly reports to our clients detailing the progress we've made. We analyze recruitment processes, candidate quality, and so forth. On this occasion, our client also wanted to analyze the overall Hiring Process within the company. So, we assisted in solving this task. Additionally, we participated in creating an internal Recruitment Guide and conducted an Elevator Pitch about our collaboration results.
Results
Within the first three months of collaboration with the client, we filled 8 vacancies. Overall, we worked together for about 2 years. During this period, we successfully filled 13 vacancies of varying complexity.
Do you want to strengthen your team with top-notch IT specialists? Leave a request in the form. We will contact you as soon as possible to introduce ourselves and begin collaboration.
