Top 9 Creative Recruitment Strategies To Hire Developer On A Budget
Being able to recruit top talent while working on a limited budget is quite a challenge, but not impossible if done in the right manner.
Companies in the early stages of their existence (before receiving investment from the big VCs and becoming global players) typically operate on a shoestring budget. Therefore, finding the right candidate can be a challenge especially if they have a limited budget for the same.
It is both an art and a science to conduct an effective interview and hire. Even so, there are approaches to evaluating subtler aspects of software developers’ skills and abilities. Collectively, these techniques contribute to a highly effective screening process that has demonstrated a good rate of success.
It takes a unique combination of social networking, technical acumen, process management, and intuition to hire software development talent – really good talent. If you have ever been responsible for hiring, you know how challenging hiring can be and what we exactly mean.
The question that arises here is, How can smaller companies attract top talent in an era when big companies offer generous salaries and bonuses? In order to hire developers and other tech talent on a tight budget, what can startups do?
While everyone is looking to spend millions of dollars to get high-quality developers for hire, there are few creative recruiting strategies to hire great talents on budget. These are listed below
#1 – Appeal to their emotional side

Ofcourse, a good salary and high bonuses would appeal to anyone. But what most of the recruiters miss out on while hiring potential candidates is appealing to the emotional side of the candidates. Deep down, all of the candidates are seeking to find a real sense of purpose.
Let the candidate know what your company’s mission is. Let them know how they can contribute to the same and what value they can bring to the table. This would help them take a call that would be favourable for you too.
#2 – Offer Additional Perks
Most companies nowadays overlook simple solutions and certain easy-to-implement perks that are often high in demand and highly appealing. Here, travel allowance and medical allowances work wonders too.
#3 – Work-Life Balance

Employees today, especially millennials, give high priority to work-life balance. They do not wish to be tied down to their desks and slog. They do not like over-working and putting their personal life on a hold. They would also like to take some time-off to socialize with their friends and family, pursue their passions and live a life that is fulfilling mentally.
Employers must understand this need and offer employees a superior level of work-life balance. Such a workforce tends to be more effective and ingrain robust energy in the workplace.
A study by Deloitte reports how employees revealed that work-life balance was one of the most important factors while considering a job.
#4 – Offer a Healthy Environment
Employees today have a hungry need to succeed. This need can be leveraged to your organization by offering them a healthy environment where collectively all the employees work towards attaining goals that are both mutual and individual.
#5 – Offer Travel or Holiday Allowance

An excellent benefit that employees can gain today is getting a holiday allowance. Post covid, remote working has gained high importance. By giving them flexibility to make use of holiday allowance or offer to work from anywhere for a certain amount of time can actually motivate them.
Adding some creativity along with some well-designed and relevant benefits will empower you to not only retain your current employees but also encourage them to become brand ambassadors for your organization.
These employees can actually be willing to take a pay cut because they are getting something more than that.
#6 – Search for resources who are looking for a career

The best hires are those who are not merely looking for a job to earn money!
These resources are instead looking for such a workplace that has high potential to grow and also simultaneously offers similar high growth prospects to its employees. Basically, these resources, especially high-class talents are looking for a lucrative career that would take them to a new level. Here, your company’s goals, mission and work culture also plays an important role.
#7 – Show that they are one of the best
#8 – Stock Options
When the employee agrees to take up this mode of salary, it means that he agrees to the company’s mission and believes in its potential. This is because their own hand-held shares would also increase with the company’s growth.
Microsoft is one of those companies who offered stock options years back to its employees. They eventually created 3 billionaires and over 12,000 millionaires since then!
#9 – Showcase the company’s growth

Some of the best talents are more often than not looking for an excellent opportunity that is challenging as well! These employees are keen to know about how their potential growth would be and how their career advancement would be. If a candidate understands the scope of his current role as well as the career opportunities in the company, he or she is more likely to accept a salary cut over career advancement.
In a poll by Gallup, 87% of the millennials reported career advancement was very important in a job.
Ending Note
When in the process of finding new methods to retain employees and even hire developers, keeping them engaged with exciting perks and challenges would go a long way. Letting go of these, would mean that you would probably have to let go of high-level talents.
Few other ways of cutting down on costs is to streamline the interviewing & hiring process. You can invest in automation of this process, thus saving several manual hours and hence a lot of money in the long term. Here, the effectiveness and efficiency of your hiring process would improve.