One common complaint that I hear from my clients and recruiter friends is that it is very hard to find good Java talent.
I am fortunate enough to be on the other side of the coin, I have been working with Java for several years now, I have authored several books on Java and have been a speaker at Oracle's JavaOne conference on more than one occasion, so I'd like to think I'm one of those hard to find good Java developers.
Being on the other side of the coin, I am bombarded every day with emails from recruiters interested in my services, I am fortunate enough to be able to be selective about the projects I work with. In my experience there are three things that drive me away from accepting a project. Here are my suggestions on things you can do to attract top Java talent.
Make it easy to apply
It is mind boggling to me the number of companies that require me to go fill out some long, convoluted form just so that I can apply for a job with them. I have several other companies that are dying to hire me, don't make it a hassle for me to apply for a job for you. On a similar note, many companies require me to fill out some form made in Word that duplicates all the information that already exists in my resume.
If you want me to work for you, don't make it a hassle for me to apply.
Be flexible with your tax terms
For quite a few years now, I've been an independent consultant, in order to do this, I had to incorporate, hire a payroll service, and get insurance for my business. I already have an infrastructure in place to run my business, therefore I only take Corp-to-Corp (C2C) contracts. A lot of companies do W2 only, or want a permanent employee only. Again, I have several potential clients that want to hire me and agree to my terms, your chances of hiring me are slim to none if you are unwilling or unable to do a C2C contract.
Your project has to be interesting
I'm not going to pull any punches here, a lot of the Java projects out there just suck, plain and simple. If what you want me to do is maintain an old J2EE application using Struts 1 and Spring 1 or 2, I'm not going to be very interested in your project. You need to modernize your infrastructure if you want to attract top Java talent. I have actually researched the topic on modernizing legacy server side Java web applications, and wrote a series of articles for the Oracle Technology Network (OTN) a while back on the topic. The articles focus on Spring to Java EE migration, but the same concepts apply to J2EE to Java EE migration. If you need help modernizing a legacy project, drop me a note, this will certainly be an interesting project and I'll be happy to help.
