Tips for Finding and Hiring Certified .NET Developers

Created by Microsoft in 2002, the .NET framework quickly rose to the top and since then became one of the most popular programming tools in the tech world. Naturally, the number of software developers who mastered this technology is really high and getting only higher, but still, finding a real expert in .NET for an affordable price seems impossible to many business owners. In this post, we will talk about the main tips for this process. 

Know What You Look For

Hiring .NET developers is all about planning. Without a clear understanding of a future app’s basic functions, technical requirements, and potential added features you really can’t know for sure what kind of software engineers, how many and what employment model to adopt. Knowing .NET technological basics also helps a lot at this stage. If you are an absolute beginner with no tech background at all, try to hire a tech lead early on or rely on a list of skills for every kind of .NET developer you can find online.  

Work on the Job Description

Writing a clear and detailed job description is always important, but with .NET developers, it is an absolute necessity. Because of the unbelievable number of tasks you can achieve with this framework, using different programming languages and tech tools, you will need to be really specific about the right candidates to reach out to. Write about the project’s technical requirements, the team role you are looking to fill, the overall company brand, and other things you consider important. Remember, .NET software engineers are in high demand and will unlikely contact you if they are unsure about the job description. Another thing to mention, a lot of .NET developers also call themselves C# coders, as this is the most common language used when working with this framework. So writing unclear job descriptions can cost you a viable candidate or two. 

Confirm Hard Skills

With the number of .NET developers being at an all-time high, there are a lot of beginners who will likely apply for a job. Testing candidates’ hard skills and asking the right questions are crucial for a successful hiring process. You can easily find numerous questionnaires online or ask someone with tech knowledge to assist you during interviews. And don’t be shy about giving potential employees some little test task to be absolutely sure of their qualifications. Another great way to check candidates’ .NET knowledge is by searching online for their code samples or examples of past work. 

Don’t Forget About Soft Skills

With .NET IT professionals’ soft skills play an even more important role than usual. Because of the great number of tasks you can achieve with the help of this framework in different ways using a variety of tools, candidates need to be creative and think outside of the box. Also, specialists in this field need to have a great learning ability and desire to keep up with all the new updates and tools released for .NET constantly. Confirming developers’ presence in online communities dedicated to the Microsoft framework is a great way to learn about their attitudes. 

Be Proactive

Expert .NET developers rarely actively seek employment and usually have more than enough on their plate at any given moment. So, just posting job descriptions on several sites won’t be enough to find your perfect candidate. You will need to adopt a more proactive approach and use different recruiting channels. Go to .NET professionals communities on sites like Reddit, StackOverflow, GitHub, and Meetup.com, search on social media for thematic hashtags and communities, attend offline and online events dedicated to this Microsoft technology, search for the most popular blogs on this topic, etc. Even if you won’t be as successful as you hoped, you will be able to meet some .NET engineers and establish relationships. Who knows, maybe they will refer someone they know to you or will come aboard for future projects. 

Look Overseas

With average salaries for .NET software developers in North America being really high for most budgets, it is wise to look further offshore. You can hire remote IT professionals by yourself or pay for outsourcing vendors’ services. They will have whole teams or just individual dedicated .NET developers, who are already vetted and ready to work. Because of a number of factors, most notably lower cost of living and currency exchange rate difference, top-notch senior .NET engineers will cost you as much as junior developers in the USA. When you are not limited by any borders, there is no need to compromise and try to find a perfect middle between quality and price. 

Interviewing Process

A lot of experienced IT professionals prefer not to drag the interviewing process out, but with .NET developers, it is even more important to keep it as short and effective as possible. Because of high demand, your perfect candidate can be snatched away by another employer right in front of you just because you decided to add another video interview. Three-four stages are more than enough to confirm both hard and soft skills. And remember, even if you hired an IT staffing agency or outsourcing firm, try to insist on participating in the interviewing process. Nobody can assess candidates’ soft skills better than you and we already mentioned how important it is. 

Final Thoughts

Hiring an expert .NET developer is not an easy task, but it is not impossible either. Of course, every company, big and small, hunts for rising talent and top experts in this field, but don’t give up just yet. With a great deal of planning and investing your resources in writing perfect job descriptions, you can make your search much easier. Don’t limit yourself to traditional channels of searching for tech talent and don’t be afraid to look abroad. If you follow all the advice from this post, it is possible that you will beat your competitors and hire a perfect software engineer even without hiring recruiting professionals.