How to attract candidates to apply?

If you are a candidate and are not sure what questions to ask during the interview, check the list below. Asking good questions is as important as providing correct answers.

If  you are a recruiter do not be surprised that candidates may be asking those questions. Prepare for it if possible or even better include some details in job description.

Company​

It is a wide topic and many questions can be asked about the company in general. In IT you can ask if the company has it's own products or is an IT service provider for other companies. In case of own products, what are the products? Who is using the products? For service companies ask about the customers and projects. You may also ask about the history of the company and its vision for the future.

Team​

The team you will be working in will be important part of your everyday life. What is the experience of other team members? Will you find mentors from whom you can learn?  Are there junior colleagues you can teach? What are the roles? Does team also include some business people, designers, testers, DevOps specialists? What are the other teams that you will closely cooperate with?

Project​

What is the project that you will be working on? Is it a single project or couple of applications? Is it a greenfield project or a legacy system? What is the technology? How big is the team working on it? What is the timeline of the project?

When you ask the interviewer to provide more details about the project you will  usually get all the relevant answers. But also be prepared that in some cases you won't be allowed to know that kind of information until you sign the NDA agreement.

Process​

What is the project management methodology? Scrum, Kanban, waterfall? What tools are used to manage tasks? How often is the product released? It would be good to know ahead so that you can prepare a little bit before joining the new workplace in case you are not familiar with some of the industry practices.

You may be also interested if company is using any continuous integration and delivery tools like Jenkins, TeamCity or AzureDevOps and how testing process looks like. Are automated tests prepared, who is responsible for creating it? Are there any other types of tests like performance or security tests?

If you would like to go deeper and company has relevant standards in place, you may also ask about definition of ready and definition of done. For example does it include code review as obligatory element?

Assuming that your future employer is taking IT professionally and has some version control tools in place, you may also be interested in a branching model. Is company using some standard approach like GitFlow?

Technology​

What programming languages are the key requirement? What libraries and frameworks are used? Is system deployed to cloud or on-premises servers? Which cloud is it: AWS, Azure, Google or maybe some other provider? What is the architecture of the front-end? Is backend monolithic or split into (micro)services? What is the technology for databases? How database is accessed? You will be able to deduct most of the answers about technology from job offer, but it's worth to understand what technologies would be most relevant. Job offers sometimes include more than is essential for everyday work, or in contrary do not mention some of the solutions used.

It is also helpful to ask if the technical stack is already decided for long-term or will be chosen by the team. Another scenario that you may check is the possibility to move between projects or teams in the future and what technology changes you could expect in that cases.

Hardware​

What is the usual hardware setup? Can you have 2 monitors on your desk? What is the operating system? Do employees work on laptops? What is the hardware setup of the computer? Will you have access to some additional devices for testing like mobile devices, smartwatches, IoT sensors etc if applicable?

Role​

This is probably most important area to investigate. How does the usual workday looks on this position? What are the key skills? How much time will you spent on feature development compared to bug-fixes or meetings?

Career path​

What are the options for promotion on given position? Where do people usually move next in the organization after this role?

Personal development​

What options company provides to be up to date with fast-changing industry? Are there any internal or external trainings? Does company sponsor any certification paths or provides access to self-study resources like Pluralsight? Is there any educational budget that can be used to participate in conferences or workshops? What is the budget limit for this position?

Salary range​

Information about salary range becomes a standard in IT recruitment. Don't be afraid to ask about it, it is not a taboo. It should never be your only motivator for accepting the offer, but also the reality is that no professional plans next career move without considering salary raise or at least staying at the similar level. So make sure at the early stage that you won't be disappointed after putting more effort into recruitment process and taking interviewers' time.

Even if it's your first job is worth to have some pre-defined expectations based on easily available public salary reports and your non-commercial / academical record.

Always keep in mind that salary range will usually depend on your experience and skills that given position requires. The range can be quite wide if company is open to hire specialists on different levels. It's up to you to prove that you deserve to be close to the upper limit and there is no better candidate than you.

Other benefits​

It is very common nowadays to get additional benefits like sport card membership,  private medical care, mobile phone, free beverages, snacks or even meals.  Some companies may offer other things like company shares. Depending on your position you may also get a car but it's not common in IT unless your position requires a lot of local travelling.

Team building activities​

We spent significant amount of time at work. Co-workers often become our  friends with whom we go out for a beer, play sports, discuss movies near coffee machine, eat lunch. It's good to know if company supports some company-wide or team integration events.

Location​

I know so many people that were changing job mainly because of location. People value their time and prefer not to spend to much time commuting. Ask where is the office that you will be working in but also ask about other locations the company may have to be prepared to be part of a remote team what is quite common in today's global economy.

Working hours​

In IT you can expect flexible starting hours between 7 and 10 but it may be different from company to company. Some positions require close cooperation with external partners which may be working on specific hours or even different time zones. Sometimes you need to have at least of a few hours of overlap with partners from other time-zones.

Relocation package​

Are you moving to another city or country? Ask if company provides some support with relocation. It could be paperwork help, helping with finding the apartment to rent or even providing some extra money to cover relocation costs.

Office​

Is it possible to see some photos or movie from the office? Some companies that are proud of their workplace publish movies showing the office in their corporate page or YouTube channel.

Can you come by bike? Is there a car parking available? Is there a relax room? Is there a place where you can make a short private phone call? Is it open-space or smaller rooms? Is it possible to work on a stand-up desk? That are interesting topics but also be careful not to flood recruiter with tens of that kind of questions. If you have good general impression about that company just trust that it will be OK and you will be able to sort it out.

Things like restaurants and gyms in the neighborhood or public transport options you can check by yourself on Google Maps once you know the address and the address is not in North Korea. Do not use recruiters time for that, it's not your personal assistant ;)

Remote work​

Also check options of remote work. Do developers work on laptops? If not, you can probably assume that in practice remote work won't be easy to organize. Companies usually do not recommend or forbid to recreate your work environment on your personal computer at home. I've seen developers taking stationary PC from office to home to work remotely, but well... that were old days.

Today most likely it could be the other way. Some companies have BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy. In this case you can expect that remote work is quite common for given employer.

Travel​

Does position require business trips? How often and where? Is there a kick-off training in other location, for example in the headquarters? How much time will it take? If you have some limitations to travel tell about it. If you like to travel also tell that you are open to that and it won't be a problem. Whatever is your situation make it clear since the beginning.

Summary​

The list is quite long. Recruitment meetings usually have schedule and as candidate you usually can expect 5-10 minutes being dedicated to answer your questions. At the first meeting or call choose 2-3 questions most important to you. Do your homework and do not ask about things which could be easily checked online by yourself.

If it's the final interview feel free to ask anything that you want to know. All in all changing job is a big decision.