How Badoo is gaining developers

Hello! My name is Arkady, I am a Timlid in the company of Badoo. Today I will tell you about how in one weekend we made a job offer to eight mobile developers. Once again, I’ll invite you to participate in our recruiting event, following which we will take the best Android and iOS developers to work in the London office of Badoo.

It is not a secret for anyone that the software development industry today is experiencing a severe shortage of qualified personnel. Employers and recruiters are trying hard to attract good specialists. All means are used: from banal spam on LinkedIn, advertising on social networks and on specialized sites to invitations within your own services. I think many have heard the story of how Google analyzes search queries, identifies developers and offers them jobs. I'm not sure that this story is true, but I personally, one popular FINTECH startup invited me for an interview through your mobile application.

Modern advertising platforms allow targeting advertising very precisely to the target audience. For example, it's very easy to order ads on Facebook, which will be shown to developers in a particular area. However, all this gives a very mediocre result, if you look at the number of candidates who responded to the vacancy and were interviewed.
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Badoo is now growing rapidly, and we constantly need new strong developers who can quickly join the team and begin to work productively. This summer, it became clear that we needed more people than the standard search process could provide, and we started to think what could be done. We actively advertised our vacancy, saw quite good results on views, but received a modest number of responses. And this is despite the fact that the company has a pretty good reputation.

Many people know the guys from our teams by speaking at conferences , blogging on Habré . The working conditions at Badoo have already become a legend, at some point a report about our monthly parties was even shown on TV (and now I’m writing this post, and preparation for the Halloween party is going on with might and main). In personal conversations, almost everyone expresses a sincere desire to work with us. So what's missing?

How did we come to the idea of ​​conducting all stages of the interview in one day off?

We thought about what can be changed in the recruitment process in order to recruit people more quickly, without at the same time lowering the bar for employee requirements. We tried to take the place of the potential specialist we are looking for. It was not difficult, because we all once were candidates.

So, our potential colleague has several years of specialized experience. Due to his extraordinary abilities, he most likely already works in a good and / or well-known company, he has a fairly high salary. On the whole, everything has already happened to him, everything is stable. Nevertheless, it is open to suggestions and is ready to consider new opportunities. And he learns about our job ...

Surely he had already heard about the company, perhaps he read the reviews on Glassdoor and was inspired. He will call and arrange an interview right on Thursday. Although no, on Thursday the next release, you must be at work, you can not let the team down. So next week! But no, next week, too, it will not be possible to allocate time: every day - meetings. But the interview will be several, and each time you will need to somehow find the time. How to explain his absence in the workplace, and even several times in a row? Even if the management is adequate and does not make the tragedy from the fact that the staff go to the interview, it is still somehow inconvenient. And then they write him something in the corporate chat, he opens a new tab in the browser, and the question from the interview goes into the category “when there will be time”. That is, never.

Common situation?

It became clear: if a person does not have valid reasons to change work, if he is generally satisfied with everything, then it is very difficult to make him even just come for an interview. Even if in principle he does not mind trying his hand. And in our case, the situation is even more complicated: after successful video interviews, we invite the candidate to our London office. That is, you need to do a visa and set aside a few days for the trip.

What to do is obvious: eliminate all inconveniences. Is it difficult to set aside time in the week? We assign interviews for the weekend. Long wait for a visa, hard to fly to London? We transfer the action to our Moscow office. And to make the process more convenient, you need to compress it to one day. And we did it all!

We set a date: at the weekend, when our team will fly from London to Moscow to interview candidates non-stop. For pre-screening, a test was made at hackerrank.com. We wrote a post with an invitation , made several posts on social networks - and that was enough for 407 developers on iOS and Android to try our test. We selected 36 people with the highest scores and invited them to our office. Mobile teams prepared questions on their platforms for two interviews (the first - for half an hour, the second - for an hour, each stage - for elimination). Those who went through both stages, waited for the final one-hour interview on system design. Having successfully passed all the stages, we immediately made a written offer of work.

Between interviews, candidates could have a bite, watch our reports on the big screen, play table tennis, or immerse themselves in virtual reality. By the way, the latter method of entertainment is not suitable for everyone: it may turn dizzy, which will be very inappropriate for an interview (tested on personal experience).

Some statistics:
407 people tried our Hackerrank test;
We invited 36 people to the office for interviews;
22 successfully completed the first stage;
16 passed the second stage;
eight people received job offers;
five of them are already working in our London office.

The results were recognized as super successful, and now, six months later, we have decided to repeat the recruiting event. Date has already been set! On November 18–19, our team will again interview candidates in Moscow.

About the event November 18–19

So, we again invite Android and iOS developers to try their hand!

Like last time, in order to get an invitation to a full-time meeting, you need to pass a simple test on hackerrank.com. Link to it - here events.badoo.com

I talked with the guys who participated in the last event and are now working with us, asked what they would improve. Almost everyone noted that there were too long periods of anxious waiting between the stages of the interview. Therefore, we have compiled a new schedule in which these delays have been eliminated for each candidate. We will invite candidates in small groups at different times throughout the day and will provide the necessary number of interviewers so that each candidate will be interviewed without pauses.

And here are our interviewers, get acquainted!

iOS team: Bogdan Orlov KAIIIAJIOT , Anton Schukin AntonPalich , Alexis Santos, Victor Shamanov wiruzx .



Android team: Andrei Kulikov andkulikov , Nikita Starkin, Arkady Ivanov.



As well as Rafael López (head of mobile development), Ivan Biryukov bivy (Android features team lead), Jairo Gonzalez (iOS features team lead) and I, Arkady Gamza arkadygamza (iOS and Android core team lead).

"I would come, but ..."

I understand that many are afraid of the very idea of ​​moving to another country. Therefore, I will try to dispel some fears that may deter you from making such a decision. I collected personal statistics of the arguments that people most often cite, refusing to move to London ...

"... bad weather in London"

To be honest, I myself thought so, until I moved. And I was extremely surprised that the weather in London is much better than in Moscow. In general, the climate is much milder: in summer it is not so hot, in winter it is not so cold. According to statistics, in London there are 142 sunny days a year, while in Moscow there are only 114. That is, there is more sun for a whole month a year! My personal observations are consistent with the statistics; I often exchange photos with friends from Moscow and St. Petersburg, it looks like this (photos taken on the same day):





By the way, there are a lot of evergreens in London, including palm trees, which perfectly tolerate the local winter.

But the benefits, of course, not only in the sun and temperature. London is clean. I go in winter and summer in white sneakers, and they do not get dirty! The car can be washed once a year, it remains clean, even if the road is wet. Personally in Moscow I was very depressed for six months a year (or even more) to endure the dirt on the roads, breathe non-freezing air and contemplate the dull stream of dirty cars. Maybe, just because of the clean roads in the UK, many people do not slip out on the threshold, entering home, which makes our compatriots horrified.

"…I do not know much English"

Formally, to get a work visa, it is enough to score 4 points out of nine in the IELTS exam. This is a very low level. If you can order your own beer in English, then most likely, turn in.

In everyday life, you will definitely not experience difficulties - London is a little less than completely populated by migrants from all over the world, everyone has long been accustomed to very different pronunciation and level of understanding of English. For example, I had difficulty only talking on the phone. And still not understand everything; but now I'm not ashamed to ask again until I understand the idea of ​​the interlocutor.

"... there is very expensive!"

This is true - a lot is more expensive than in Russia. But they pay very well. I will give an example. Badoo gives new employees a relocate bonus of 10,000 pounds to relocate. Then every month, in addition to salary, you can earn a bonus up to 75%! There are still semi-annual bonuses twice a year. As a result, the developer's income may exceed 100,000 pounds per year. I often hear: “Everybody earns money there.” This is a myth: only 2% of the UK population receives so much. So in the car of the London subway you will have a good chance to be the most highly paid specialist.

More about all the nuances of moving to London and living in Albion was written by our colleague in this article .

Feel free to ask questions in the comments, we will try to answer all!

Once again, a link to test events.badoo.com

Update: on the weekend of November 18-19, we made 11 offers! Many thanks to all who participated!