Recruiting top technical talent, especially software developers, is not an easy task. With the proliferation of startups in the market, increasing numbers of large tech companies offering remote working offers, and highly competitive counter offers, the odds of finding the proverbial rock star .NET developers are growing increasingly slim.

It’s no secret that good .NET developers are hard to find. However, what makes finding the best .NET developers such a challenge? What path would lead you straight to the best resource in the market? Here is what you need to know to find your answers.

What Should You Be Looking For?

This hiring challenge is more than just an issue of demand and supply.The disconnect, as we call it, between the right resource and the recruiter is because many of them are using the term ‘.NET developer’ too broadly for anyone’s understanding. Simply stating you need a .NET developer is like telling your barber to give you a haircut without specifying the exact style you’re looking for. Without specifying the set of expertise and skills, you’re looking for in a developer, the chances of finding the right person or in this case, any person would grow significantly slim.

Be Clear About the "Must Haves" and the "Nice to Haves"

It is quite possible that what you’re looking for is lying right under your nose, but you don’t see it. A lack of understanding about what makes a good fit for your company sometimes blindsides you about hiring the right person even when they are right in front of you. Thus, knowing the difference between "must have" and "nice to have" when seeking skills and expertise is the key to finding the right resource.

Why Should You Hire from an Established Company?

We’ve observed that the failure to find the right resource for a full-time position nowadays compels recruiters to hire a freelancer over the internet. For jobs like website designing, and PHP development, a freelance developer might be a good option to get the job done. However, when it comes to .NET development, it’s always recommended to hire a person in-house or hire from an established company, whether offshore or onshore. The reason you should go for an established company or experienced, in-house development team is that they usually provide highly skilled professionals, something that you cannot be certain of while working as a freelancer. Another reason for such inclinations is client-developer communication. Compared to a freelancer, a well-established company has a better organizational structure to provide you with the real-time solutions for your problems, making it easy for you to collaborate on your project effectively.

How Do You to Find Them?

Post a compelling ad on niche job boards like The Ladders, LinkedIn, Joel on Software, and Indeed, that are good at pre-screening candidates through self-selection. One thing to be aware of is the fact that most top guns may only hit the open job market once or twice in their careers. If you want to hire the best candidates for your company, avoid the pool of candidates that are applying to every job posting you open over the years.

As discussed in the previous section, hiring. Net developers from an established company have its own perks. Your search shouldn’t be limited to only individuals, instead, you must look out for .NET development company with the provent track record as well. Like every other thing, Google is the best place to find such companies. Also, you can explore popular business databases such as Crunchbase or LinkedIn. Contact the companies and request for RFP or find information about how long they have been in the business, service offerings, projects they have worked on similar to your requirement and other relevant credentials.

Where Do You Find Them?

The challenge of finding highly skilled .NET developers becomes easier to overcome if you have first-hand knowledge of which part of the country or, broadly speaking, the world to search in. It’s an established fact these days that the world’s most attractive locations for job outsourcing are South Asia and Eastern Europe. The LinkedIn Talent Pool Report of 2014 indicates that South Asia, particularly India, has the biggest talent pool of highly skilled .NET developers.

What to Look for While Interviewing Candidates?

Once you have sought the right candidate for your company, here is a list of sample questions that you must ask a .NET developer.

• When should you use an IoC container?
• What is the basic difference between an abstract class and interface?
• When and how should you use interfaces?
• What is a static class, and when should it be used?
• Explain what the String Builder class is and why you'd want to use it?
• When and where should you use the statement Assert?AreEqual?
• What's a weak reference? When would you want to use one?
• What's the difference between a DataTable and a DataReader?

So, what talent pool does your organization usually refer to when looking for .NET developers? Let us know in the comments below, and thanks for reading!