We have recently recruited:

Senior Developer PHP
Senior Developer Android/Rails/PHP
Mobile Developer iOS/Android
Front End Developer

During the process we have learnt a number of things that I think are crucial to recruiting development staff.

Recruitment Companies

Recruitment companies are a necessary evil, it may feel you don't get much value but the majority of high quality candidates come through agency's and there are a couple of good companies out there.

Don't pay more than 15% and ideally 10-12%, listening to an recruitment consultant trying to justify 35% is an amusing past time.

Make sure you get a free replacement if they don't make it through their 3 month probation, if the recruitment company won't do this, they clearly don't care about getting you the right person.

Don't work exclusively with 1 agency they cant possibly have more than 5% of the candidates so why would you possibly want to exclude 95% of the Market.

CVs

Be wary of CVs that list every language ever written, a lot of developers seem to think if they have done a couple of hours work on something they can put it on their CV, if someone lists something on there CV make sure you question it.

Education and academia is a big thing in development and whilst personally I don't have a degree as I chose to real world experience over academic reward I still like to see developers with good degrees, if you got a 2:2 or a 3rd you just wasted 3 years so how good an asset is that candidate likely to be. I would rather see someone with an extra 3 years experience and no degree than someone with a poor degree.

Interviews

Don't waste valuable time, interview a candidate initially over the phone to check that they are going to be fit for purpose, in 10-15 minutes you will know if they are worth inviting for a formal interview.

Make sure you test them, whilst it can be excruciatingly awkward when someone is struggling to explain what is wrong with a code sample make sure you really pressure them with difficult questions.

Don't hire people who just want a job, the best developers are passionate about technology, when they are not at work they are playing with technology and working on their own projects - these are the people your organisation needs.

Watch out for Lone Wolf developers, people who can't work in a team and try and force their opinion on to their fellow developers. Developers like this will consistently rail road discussions and affect productivity.

Some questions to ask developers

What is your approach to testing?
What has been your biggest challenge in the last 12 months?
How do you keep up with industry news?
What are the latest features in version X of language Y?
What do you think of Frameworks like Zend, CakePHP and CodeIgnitor?
What is the difference between public, private and protected?
What do you use for Source Control? (I don't as I develop alone is a terrible answer!)
How would I protect against SQL Injection and XSS attacks?

Offering

Offers someone their current salary with the increase if they pass the probation, you save on the recruitment fee and it gives you a chance to really test them.

If possible particularly with people either out of work or contracting before you offer full time, ask them to come in for a 4 week paid trial on a contract day rate equivalent to the salary and really put pressure on them to deliver, this technique alone has saved us thousands in wasted recruitment fees.

You get what you pay for, hiring cheap is false economy, don't lose the right candidate for the sake of a couple of grand.

Conclusion

We have hopefully followed our own advice and got some top guys coming onboard over the next 4-8 weeks the only other thing I would say is trust your gut and take time to find the right person, very rarely is your initial impression of somebody wrong and if you thing they are not right, don't hire them - you will find the right person it just takes time.

The team has grown considerably over the past few months and we are fortunate to be building a great team of guys and girls who all get what One Result is about and where we are heading.

With growth comes numerous headaches for any business, things that were once simple become time consuming and profit draining and have to be managed effectively. Considerations on health and safety, long term resource planning, cash forecasting, HR and personal development of employees all feature highly on a list of non core tasks that are non revenue generative.

In addition to our recruitment drive we are currently looking at re-location options for a couple of reasons.

Our office is absolutely stunning, a barn conversion in leafy tanworth in arden, but it has 4 issues for us moving forward.

1. There is no space left, with 13 people in 865sqft it's a very tight squeeze.

2. The office is open plan which is great for atmosphere and collaboration but means our meeting area lacks privacy.

3. Broadband, it's rural location and the fact the local exchange probably still has an old lady manually patching te calls through means our broadband just isn't cutting it, so far fibre is looking like a 10k investment!

4. Techies don't like cars, a bit of a sweeping statement but being rural and not near any major public transport routes impacts are ability to recruit good people, we have interviewed a number of candidates in recent months who would have been great, but the commute was just not feasible.

So now all we need to do is find a great looking office, with decent broadband, near major public transport, with at least 10 parking spaces a minimum of 1500sqft around the Solihull area.

We have identified a number of options and will see what comes up over the next few weeks and just how hard we can negotiate, after all the commercial property market is in dire straits and we have been offered all kinds of deals like 6 months rent free, 2 years half price, additional car park spaces.

So the hunt continues....

Onwards!

Recently domain expert Gary Taylor of 3AC joined One Result as our new operations director and we have been discussing parked domains in great detail.

I understand why people buy domains and sit on them, I have experienced first hand the return on investment purchasing a great domain can provide but why oh why in this day and age with numerous hosted CMS options and pretty much anyone being able to build semi decent looking web presence do people not put some effort into developing their domain.

Even if you just built a 5-7 page micro site based on wordpress with some good content themed around your domains topic you will be building some level of trust and authority with Google that will ultimately increase the value of your domain further.

In my opinion there is no excuse for not developing domains in your portfolio and anyone with half a brain looking to purchase domains will value the fact there has been an actual web site on the domain for  the previous x years rather than a parking page that will have probably only earned you 32 pence per year.

We have recently taken on a Trainee Web Developer at One Result and he has spent the last month learning the basics of building sites and is now building out our domain portfolio into cross linked micro sites at an alarmingly quick rate.

So domainers get building and add another 30% to the value of your portfolio.

Can write posts and pages as well as editing existing ones. You can also manage all comments.

Good job, might actually write a few more posts now but I doubt it.

Well regardless of the name this product is certainly a game changer and can't wait to get my hands on one. The reason I think it will be a game changer despite some fairly rough initial reviews is the fact the pricing model is low enough to make this a main stream product.

Think about it, if you only browse the net, use email, listen to music and go on Facebook what more do you need and with the addition of Office style applications for basic wordprocessing and spreadsheets it will fit the needs of 90% of users - I think being part of the tech community we forget that 90% maybe even 95% of people do not have such high requirements of their hardware and only use a fraction of their devices power and feature set.

The big thing I think it will change is how we digest our media, there is something to be siad for flicking through the paper, reading articles that grab your attention - well online news sites arent really like this - however with the iPad can see traditional publishing styles coming to this device and I would expect to be able to subscribe to most mainstream newpapers and magazines through this channel.

I also think that it will take a big chunk out of the handheld gaming market, particullarly the Nintendo DS. Whilst the graphics are not amazing on the iPad it is certainly a step in that direction from Apple and after the success of Game Apps on the iPhone they will be sure to be looking to capitalise, the presentation from the guys from EA on Need for Speed in the Keynote Video was amazing.

So what does this all mean for iPad App Developers?

Well there is a new SDK available which I have downloaded, I would love to tell you about it but developers have had to sign up to an online NDA in order to get the SDK, personally I think this is wishful thinking on the part of Apple as stuff is bound to be tweeted over the next 2 months before the devices ship.

I think there are now countless opportunities foriPad App developers to really create killer apps particularly given the larger screen resolution at 1024x768 and the mass market adoption I believe that device will recieve.

Microgeneration is all about generating your own heat and power at home using various new technologies such as Biomass Boilers, Micro CHP Units, Ground Source Heat Pumps and Solar PV units.

The website is due to launch in the coming weeks and there is currently a blog containing lots of informations about Microgeneration. Once the site is launched it will be a great resource for the consumer to simplify the process of understanding micro generation particularly with the goverment launching it's Feed in Tariff in April this year which will mean home owners will be paid for every unit of electricity they generate.

Some say he sleeps for just 2 hours a night

Some say he has been out with one of the Spice Girls

All we know is he's the STIG.

Well unfortunately this is no the longer the case after the mysterious driving legend from the BBC's Topgear was revealed to be Ben Collins a racing and stunt driver.

Apparently Collins was in an art shop in Bristol looking for a Stig picture, when he let slip - rather self indulgent!

So inspred by the classic World War poster "Your Country Needs You" I have now posted my own version around the office to remind people that time needs tracking.

Titled Your Company Needs You - Time Sheets - Dont be a tit about it.

You can see the poster below and if you have Tickspot trouble then why not download it and put it around your offiice.

So how can you protect your personal reputation?

#1 Start a Blog and buy some domains

Starting a blog is easy and can be done completely free with no experience what so ever. Visit www.wordpress.com and register your blog name. Make sure you try and use your real name as your login and hyphenate or come up with a sensible alternative if it is not available, something like firstname-surname.wordpress.com is perfect.

If you do have a small budget and a little bit of technical expertise then it can pay dividends to buy your own personal domain name and host a blog there.

Search engines particularly Yahoo and Live will rank your personal domain name with almost no effort at all.

#2 Use you real name

Too many people comment on blogs with there online pseudonym bigballs6 and BoyRacer, why?

Unless you have something to hide use your real name, that way any time you comment on a blog, post to a forum, or get tagged in picture, that page is likely to be returned in Googles results when someone searches on your name.

There is a great post from Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz on the subject of personal branding

#3 Setup Profiles on Popular Professional Networking sites

The last 2 years has seen an explosion in social networking sites, with many of these sites now ranking well for Name searches. A good profile on these sites coupled with a blog and a few other little tricks can see you owning the front page of Google for any name searches particularly if you have a more unique name like Dave Carruthers

We would recommend setting up accounts on the following sites as a priority

1. Ecademy
2. LinkedIn
3. Xing.com
4. Naymz.com
5. LookupPage.com (They will even bid on your name with Google Adwords and by a personal domain name for $65 per year)

All of these sites contain alert systems so you know exactly when your profile has been viewed.

Once you have profiles on all these sites make sure you link them all together by adding links to your other profiles on each profile page, this well help them rank well in the search engines.

#4 Protect your Facebook/MySpace/Bebo/etc...account

People always say never mix business with pleasure and Facebook and My Space could not be better proof of that.

Make sure you make sure your account is locked down so only people you accept as friends can see your profile.

Do you really want your next employer or business partner to see pictures of what you and your mates got up to on Nobby’s stag doo - definitely not.

Lock it down and think about who you accept as a friend, as it may come back to haunt you.

#5 Its Twitter time

Twitter.com is a relatively new  concept  to many of microblogging but again choosing the right user name here is essential, choose your real name and that page will start to rank for name searches on Google.

To visit my twitter page checkout http://www.twitter.com/DaveCarruthers

Twitter is a great way to connect with like minded individuals in your industry, for ease of use I use TwitterFox to update my Twitter status.

Darren Rowse of ProBlogger fame has got a great blog with lots of tips on how to get started with Twitter

So that concludes my 5 killer tips to protecting you personal reputation online, if you have any questions or comments please do get in touch.

Simply add your twitter username and password (the tool does not store this, but change your password after if worried) then paste the list of people you want to follow.

This nifty little tool allows you to add a whole bunch of influential people in your industy really easily. I would recommend that you fill in your bio and make 20-30 useful posts before attempting a bulk follow as you are more likely to get people following you in return if you look like a valuable member of the community.

To help get you started check out the links below.

Internet Marketers on Twitter
UK PRs on Twitter
UK Journalists on Twitter

Please feel free to add any other lists you find.