At Honeypot, we want to make tech recruitment better for both companies and developers. We receive constructive feedback from developers about various recruiting process on a daily basis. We have picked our seven most frequently occurring points, which can help you improve your tech recruitment, today!

1. Structure your interview process

Streamlining your interview process is the first, crucial step towards improving your overall hiring rate. First, you will need to consider whether the interview focuses on culture fit or hands-on skills matching for the new job role. Having a “question bank” of go-to questions is a good way of ensuring consistency. These questions should be worked into the conversation in a natural way, always bearing in mind the knowledge you have about the candidate. Scorecards as a tool for assessing and categorising candidates are also a great way of reminding yourself why this candidate appealed to you in the first place. As an added benefit, having a more structure approach to recruitment will help candidates understand procedures and what to expect, which is super helpful for those who need a little help calming their interview nerves.

2. Use work sample tests instead of a coding challenge

If you are struggling with developers who are not so keen to take your coding challenges, consider creating a work sample test. Take your application, remove a part of code responsible for a specific feature (eg. search filter) and let candidates work on it. This way they can learn about your product and picture what kind of work they would do for you. Furthermore, avoid sending tests before speaking to the developers - they also want to get to know you, before they invest time in your task!

3. Share feedback in a timely manner

Developers should receive clear, structured feedback on their performance during both the interview and coding challenge. Thanks to your feedback candidates can improve in the future and will consider your company a solid partner. Most importantly, your feedback should arrive on time! If you promised one week - do it in one week. If you are unable to keep this promise - let them know what is going on.

4. Focus on potential, not experience

Keep in mind that everyone has weaknesses. Your interview process should focus on the developer’s strengths and ability to learn new things, rather than weaknesses and mistakes made. To learn more about your candidate’s workflow process and to see how they are getting on, don’t be afraid to ask them questions about which elements they have been working on so far. It will be easy to spot smart people.

5. Speed

Speed is crucial if you are searching for senior developers. They will definitely be talking to other companies and in the end, it’s up to you to convince them to choose yours. Keep in mind that the longer you hesitate the lower the chances are for a successful hire. Make all your team members aware of how important recruiting is and find a way for them to devote a few hours per week to it. This way it will become much easier to align schedules and fix the interviews.

6. Involve non-tech team members

Having troubles evaluating the culture fit? Involve non-tech team members in the interview process. Your online marketing team works closely with the tech team? Have on OM Manager join the interview and talk about the challenges. What also works really well is a trial day, although these are pretty hard to organize if you hire someone from overseas.

7. Be considerate

If you do hire someone from overseas - be considerate. These candidates are moving their lives (and often families) to join you in your adventure. Address their needs and concerns and support them in the best way possible.

I hope these points raised by developers on Honeypot will help you improve your recruiting process. Get in touch if you have any questions or feel we missed something!


Honeypot is a developer-focused job platform. Our Account Managers work closely with HR to create the best hiring experience for developers. Sign-up now to start hiring!


Ewe Grajko

Ewe Grajko

Ewelina is an Account Manager at Honeypot. She is from Poland and before moving to Berlin, she lived in Copenhagen. She loves Scandinavian languages, tries to read a book a month and is addicted to Friends.