Anyone trying to hire .NET developers soon realizes that this isn't just about looking at a resume. As with programmers in other specialties, the recruiter needs to know exactly what to look for and make sure they are truly valuable to the overall success of the team.
You will not allow yourself to lose a potentially highly qualified candidate as you do not want to hire a freelance dot NET programmer who will be incompatible with your team and will also waste your valuable time.
Let us help and show you what is important in this technology and how to attract candidates quickly and efficiently, and ultimately hire a developer who can be a valuable addition to your .NET development team.
What your HR manager should know
Let’s be honest, knowledge of the language (here mostly C#) is not enough. To hire .NET developers, a recruiter must know a thing or two about frameworks and libraries like the Entity Framework or ASP .NET MVC, at least because any large enterprise application is built on their basis.
You should also not give up hiring .NET programmers who are not familiar with any item on the list of requirements. The frameworks are somewhat similar, so if they understand one of them, they can flawlessly switch to the other because a particular applicant is familiar with the principles and ideas behind it.
However, hiring a freelance NET developer with commercial experience is what makes a real profit for the employer.
The knowledge gained at the university, but in the absence of practice, will not bring anything useful to corporate coding. Of course, when you are hiring .NET developers and looking for young talent, education should be taken into account. You can ask for examples of open-source software projects.
The importance of a .NET certificate for assessing professional programming skills
The certificate is a controversial topic in ASP .NET development. Some agencies and professionals say that this is almost the best indicator of a high level of skill. On the other hand, some think that these exams barely demonstrate any practical skills and only represent the theoretical side when you are hiring a .NET developer. But we can say with confidence that certificates should not confirm the knowledge.
Many good ASP .NET programmers don't have it because they don't want to waste time taking a test to get certified. The rest, who do not have sufficient commercial experience, are trying to raise their market value by getting a certificate by passing an exam for it. Surprisingly enough, when someone wants to hire ASP .NET developers, too many certificates can raise a red flag for a recruiter.
Obviously, having a certificate is better than not having one. But recruiters should keep in mind that this "feature" is more like "nice to have" when you hire ASP .NET programmers. But still, commercial experience and recommendations are the best indicators of programmers' skills.
Definitely, Microsoft certifications are the most valuable when it comes to software development. They can be divided into the following list:
Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist/MCTS
Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist certificate is used as the entry point for Microsoft certificates. Several Microsoft technologies are approved through this test, such as WPF, SQL Server, SharePoint, Windows Server, etc.
There were many types of MCTS certifications used in the past, which often led to confusion, which is why Microsoft redesigned the certification scheme and is now promoting the MCSD mentioned below. This means that the MCTS certification will soon cease to exist. However, even as deprecated, its availability is appreciated by the candidate when you are trying to hire an ASP dot NET freelancer.
Microsoft Certified Solution Developer/MCSD
To hire a .NET programmer, the first thing to check is MCSD. It proves that the programmer has the full stack competence to build multi-structured applications. Consequently, they must pass several exams on certain technologies. Here is some of them:
- Web Applications: JS, HTML, ASP.NET, WebApi 2, Azure, CSS3, WCF, ASP.NET MVC 4.
- SharePoint Applications: Covers CSS3, HTML5, ASP.NET MVC 4, JS, SharePoint Server 2013-2016.
Additional info that indicates .NET developer skills
Remember to pay attention to some points in the candidate's CV:
- The candidate proves that you are not dealing with a professional as one person, but as someone who can be a great addition to your existing .NET development team.
- Experience in large projects, including large amounts of data: This means that the candidate probably knows how to solve problems that can arise in large software development projects.
- Attendance at programming conferences or meetings: This is an indicator of the programmer's interest in developing their field and their own growth. This will help you hire ASP .NET developers for a project.
- Contributing to Open Source Projects: This is a valuable feature that is "nice to have," validating the overall candidate score that you hire as a .NET programmer. It shows the dev's interest and at least intermediate skills.
To sum up
To cut a long story short, the answer to the main question: how to hire .NET developers is to understand them and their specialization. If you are a recruiter, it is very important for you to get at least basic skills and knowledge in this area. And if you are a technician who hires developers at the last stage, it is helpful to remember that it is not only the highest qualification that is important for a developer but their personality.
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