How to hire
the right people when it comes to students

The success of a business depends on the quality of its employees. Good workers are the ones that move things forward and help you evolve, while bad employees can drag a company down. It’s no secret that finding and hiring the right people is a considerable challenge, especially when creating and growing a team.

We all know that hiring the wrong person can often be expensive, time-consuming, and productivity-killing. As opposed to that, bringing the right person on board can help you get more work done and gain a new view on things, thus helping to catapult your business into unexpected success. And this is especially true when it comes to small businesses. Companies that work in the IT field are no exception to that. So how do you find the right employee? Is there a secret place for perfect workers, and more importantly, how do you convince them to work for you?

Looking to hire a few young students

Last year we were looking to hire a few young developers. Instead of going through the usual hiring process, we decided to try something new. We contacted a representative of the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca in Baia Mare. We told him that Programming Pool would like to organize a contest for the students interested in programming. The requirement was to build a program that works as an ePlanner. Students were encouraged to work in teams of two, and the estimated amount of work was between 20 and 30 hours (not too much to be discouraging and not too easy to be done in one day).

Students were able to choose the programming language they preferred. The prize for the winning team was 150 euros, while the reward for the second place was 50 euros plus the opportunity for the best four students to obtain an internship at Programming Pool. Many exciting projects convinced us that young people from Baia Mare have excellent potential when provided the chance. We have always encouraged young students to remain in our beautiful city after graduating instead of moving to bigger cities.

So by organizing this contest, we killed two birds with one stone. As a result, we hired a new developer who has evolved exponentially in the last few months. This experience has convinced us that we must repeat it in the next year because it has proven to be a win both for the university, the students, and especially for Programming Pool.