Learn how to – Dedicated WordPress Developer: How to Recruit a Development Team for a Startup

Learn how to – Dedicated WordPress Developer: How to Recruit a Development Team for a Startup.

You’ve decided to create a new software product or service on WordPress. There is already a great idea, clear positioning, first few customers, and even a budget. Still, there is only one small thing left that defines your success — you need a team of WordPress developers.

Who are the people that you are looking for: skilled dedicated WordPress programmers and analysts, front-end developers, or project assistants? In this article, we’ll look at the right and wrong decisions in recruiting and motivating people for WordPress projects. So, let’s begin!

Qualification & Motivation

For any member of the development team, two crucial parameters are essential for success — qualification and motivation. A qualification describes if a person can do the job well, and motivation determines to what extent they use this ability. Below you will find four extreme situations:

1. The highest qualification + top motivation;
2. The highest qualification + negative motivation;
3. No qualification + no motivation;
4. No qualification + positive motivation.

Qualification, as a rule, grows occasionally during the periods of gaining precious experience, mastering new skills and knowledge. In particular, qualified WordPress developers should be able to create webpages and all the related components: content, hyperlinks, graphic elements, themes, etc. Besides, they have to independently determine the web-page hierarchy, and be able to install, configure, manage, and administer WordPress. 

Meanwhile, the motivation of the WordPress developers changes dramatically because it is influenced by a huge number of factors. In practice, it is very difficult to stay at the peak of efficiency for more than several days or keep a high motivation for more than a few months. However, at the peak of motivation, a qualified WP developer can implement unique innovations that will lay the foundation for future orders, or make the templates that will become a hallmark of someone’s business.

Therefore, it is worth paying your primary attention to candidates with high qualifications and positive thinking, while basic motivation is easy to stimulate.

Correct Selection of Team Members

So, we need people who are not only qualified but can work in a team productively. Where to recruit them?

1) Large Corporations

We recommend hiring candidates with experience and the right working culture. Usually, these are people with 5+ years of experience in WordPress development who have worked in large and medium-sized companies. They are well aware of the rules of corporate culture — an atmosphere of cooperation within teams where top managers and staff are open to modern approaches and so on. In large corporations, there are always good WP developers who are stuck in professional, career, or salary growth. They are what you need.

2) Dedicated Developers

Besides large corporations, you can pay attention to the emerging trend of recent years – a dedicated development team model. If you are not aimed at recruiting full-time staff, you can hire a dedicated team for your WordPress project. These are usually well-organized and qualified groups of people who do not require additional motivation because they are interested to continue their cooperation with you in the future.

3) Hire Remote developers

The world is going remote not only because of the pandemic. From large corporations to startups, hiring remote developers has been one of the best strategies to recruit talent. The main reasons for this popular recruitment trend are that hiring remotely implies two things 1) Better talent for 2) Lower costs. If your company has an extensive budget and good local options, then this might not be your problem. But considering the IT market is getting more competitive each day, hiring remotely is a strategy to keep on top of the game. You can hire a talented remote developer from Eastern Europe and save up serious money

Risks of Hiring Wrong People

Be sure not to recruit candidates without experience in WP development (graduates, interns) to the startup team. They will have neither the skills to make the right decisions nor the ability to work in a team. An inexperienced WordPress developer will learn at your expense and bring little benefit, but, at the same time, take the place of the person who could already move your WordPress site to the top. Also, they will take the time of experienced developers who will have to answer questions, carefully check the newbie’s work, and then remake it.

Of course, there are always lucky exceptions. However, if your goal is to get a result within a certain time and budget, then you have to take care of the risks and not count on luck.

In Conclusion

When recruiting a WordPress development team, your goal is to bring together experienced developers from large and medium-sized IT companies with experience and a high level of the corporate culture. As a rule, the right people come to your office because they have found themselves in a professional, career, and salary deadlock. They do not have enough interesting tasks, prospects of higher salaries, etc. If you need these people, offer them what they want.

Of course, everyone has one’s own expectations. Therefore, it is better to get ready before the first person comes to the job interview and reflect all these requirements in the budget. Good luck!