December 17th, 2024

The Power of ‘Try Before You Buy’ in Technical Hiring


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Working in the tech talent space for more than a decade, we’ve learned that traditional technical interviews may be inadequate predictors of success. While whiteboard exercises and coding challenges may demonstrate basic competency, they rarely reveal how a candidate will perform in your specific environment, interact with your team, or align with your company’s objectives.

This is one of the use cases where the “try before you buy” approach comes into play – and we think it could revolutionize the way forward-thinking companies build their engineering teams.

The Real Cost of Hiring Mistakes

Let’s be honest, hiring the wrong senior engineer can cost your company far more than just their salary. The average cost of hiring the wrong employee is $17,000, and it likely only goes up with the seniority of the position. Beyond the obvious recruitment and onboarding expenses, there are the hidden costs: team morale disruption, project delays, and the opportunity cost of what could have been accomplished with the right hire. There’s also the lost time spent managing a poor performer. According to a CareerBuilder survey, 75% of employers have hired the wrong person for a position. 

Why Traditional Hiring Falls Short

The traditional hiring process is fundamentally flawed for technical roles. Technical assessments unfortunately cannot effectively simulate how someone approaches complex, real-world problems specific to your business and their ability to navigate your existing codebase and technical debt. You’ll also likely have difficulty assessing communication style and cultural fit within your organization after one interview.

The Strategic Advantage of Starting with Contract Work

Beginning with a contract engagement before making a full-time offer provides multiple strategic advantages:

  1. Real-world assessment: You get to evaluate the candidate’s actual performance on your projects with your tech stack alongside your team.
  2. Reduced risk: Instead of committing to a full-time hire immediately, you can evaluate fit during a defined contract period.
  3. Immediate productivity: Qualified, senior contractors can start contributing value immediately, while you evaluate their potential for a long-term role.
  4. Team dynamics: You can observe how they interact with your existing team in real situations, not just interview scenarios.

Making the Transition Work

If you’re considering this approach, here are key elements for success:

The Bottom Line

In today’s competitive tech landscape, companies can’t afford to make hiring mistakes. The “try before you buy” approach provides long-term, foundational benefits for your technical success. 

The best technical leaders understand that building a stellar engineering team is about finding the right people who can truly drive your organization forward. Starting with a contract engagement might be the most prudent way to ensure you’re making the right long-term investment in your team’s future.

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