Hiring people for work in any profession is always challenging since the market has been global for a long time and remote working is highly popular, so there is a lot of competition and many developers to choose from.
Moreover, how would you know which software developers are the most suitable for your projects?
Don’t worry since there is a solution for everything, and the most efficient way to hire a developer is to check their soft skills.
Why?
Because many developers have excellent technical skills, but if they don’t possess good soft skills, they will be like a rotten apple in your development team.
Thus, let’s see which soft skills are a-must for your future software developers.
Excellent Communication
We put excellent communication first on this list since it’s arguably the most important soft skill for any developer.
The reason is that every developer knows what is Java, but not all of them know how to explain complex technical concepts to employees from other departments and clients who don’t understand development. Your developers will constantly communicate with clients and workers from other departments who are part of the project and have multiple requests all the time.
However, they don’t know whether this is possible since they have no knowledge of development, hence why your developer has to explain everything in a simple way.
Your developers must be able to listen to clients and pay attention to every detail, and know how to communicate each aspect for the project to be successful. Also, there isn’t even a 1% chance for a development process to be successful without excellent communication between your developer and all other parties.
Time Management
Another crucial soft skill is time management since it’s the ability to understand task planning, execution, prioritization of various tasks, reflecting on previous work, etc. The reason why task management skills are so vital for every developer to have is because they foster productivity significantly and provide excellent management for everything to be set and done on time.
Your developers must have a sense of time management because time is more than necessary in each development process every single time a new project comes along.
For example, what’s the point of knowing why Laravel is best if your developer doesn’t know how to organize and finish everything on time? If they don’t have time management skills, your clients won’t be satisfied, which ultimately means you will lose clients and build a bad reputation for your business.
Teamwork
Being able to be a team player is essential for software developers since even developers with perfect technical skills can’t make the best out of every situation without teamwork.
Even if you hire developers with an excellent sense of teamwork, you still mustn’t forget to continuously foster great teamwork in your company. Great teamwork happens when you hire developers who have team working skills, and you make teamwork part of your company’s culture.
On the other hand, if your potential developers don’t have a sense of teamwork and the ability to work together with other developers, there is no need to hire them. As we mentioned at the beginning, such developers will be like a rotten apple that will destroy the development team, leaving you with no results.
Problem Solving
From brainstorming and finding the perfect solutions to addressing critical problems, the process of software development can be highly problematic. Hence, problem-solving skills are essential since the ideal way to solve any problem is by hiring a developer with these skills in their pocket.
Problem-solving is what most developers do most of their working time, which means that without having problem-solving skills, it’s impossible to finish a project, even if a developer has excellent technical qualifications.
Why?
Because even if their tech skills provide results to a certain extent, a problem will always appear since that’s the nature of this profession, and the only way to move the project forward is by solving problems quickly.
Critical Thinking
Do your potential developers understand what happens in the process of cause and effect, and can they use deductive reasoning?
If the answer is yes, you have found a developer with excellent critical thinking skills.
Critical thinking is an essential skill for developers of any type since your developers must know how to think of unique answers to challenges, evaluate complex client and user requirements, and solve complex problems from all aspects.
Also, critical thinking for developers is crucial since solving problems is even more possible if they can think critically because the core of any developer’s job relies on continuously solving issues.
Empathy
Yes, you read that right; empathy is also one of the essential and fundamental soft skills for software developers.
Why?
Because empathy is about having the ability to share and understand the feelings of others, therefore, it’s more than important for taking task challenges by understanding the users and clients who will use the project’s final outcome.
In addition, it’s vital because it will help your developers collaborate with all team members by understanding and relating their concerts and supporting the entire team. Furthermore, it boosts teamwork in a significant way since, without empathy toward other colleagues, there is no efficient teamwork in the development world.
In essence, there will be no excellent communication and teamwork if there isn’t a sense of empathy in the first place.
Work Ethic
If you hire developers who have great work ethics, they will have the motivation to learn more, become better developers, follow all new trends in the development world, and be a lot more valuable to your business.
No one can deny the importance of having an excellent work ethic high on the list when hiring a developer since both technical and all other soft skills excel to the maximum only when a person has a fantastic work ethic. It’s easy to find fantastic developers with excellent technical skills, but their soft skills will make a difference in the end. So, start hiring immediately since your competitors barely wait to steal the best developers around the globe!
