Junior developers are an underrated asset, but not for long – This is why you should act now
The value of junior IT professionals has been overlooked by companies for a long time. But now that attracting, hiring, and engaging senior developers is harder than ever, the potential that lies within junior IT talent is starting to gain interest.
If you want to build a strong in-house development team, the most cost-efficient and sustainable way is to hire juniors and coach them into fully fledged professionals. Here are four reasons why.
1. The fullstack unicorn you are waiting for isn’t coming
You’ve tried it all. From social media campaigns to headhunting. But that one full stack developer who can fix it all, just can’t be found. And in fact, that the unicorn you were looking for was never real in the first place. So now your product is suffering.
But what is real instead, is the number of junior talents with enormous potential looking for work. Talents who are eager to show their worth. All they ask for, is a chance and someone to help them develop their skills.
2. Juniors have the potential to learn anything – and when coached, they learn fast
It’s not easy out there for a junior tech talent. They are constantly told by employers that they can’t be hired for their lack of experience. And they can’t get experience without being hired. This is discouraging when they are eager to prove themselves and find their place to grow.
For a responsible and forward-looking employer, they offer a golden opportunity to give a chance to someone who will truly appreciate it. And their eagerness makes them fast learners.
To steepen their learning curve even more, and to focus their enthusiasm on the right things, they will need hands-on coaching. Coaching might seem like an extra burden, but it will help their development and engagement immensely – which in turn, will help your product and your business.
3. Junior talents come with an open mind and new ideas
If there is a downside to experience, it is that you might become set in your ways and less inclined to explore new approaches to old problems. In some cases, the corporate world might even make you a bit cynical.
With junior talents that isn’t the case. They are open minded, and because they lack predetermined ideas about solutions, they will approach challenges from various angles.
It is not solely about the senior teaching the junior, but rather, they both learn from each other.
4. With most of juniors fresh out of school, they have up to date skillsets
Junior talents do not need to be taught everything from scratch. Most juniors looking for work have recently graduated, and because of that they possess modern tech skills.
What they lack is experience in applying those skills in a professional context. And that is what you as an employer can help them with. If you also provide them with a coach, they’ll pick up the contextual skills fast (see reason 1).
Give juniors the support they need
More and more businesses are concluding that in-house development teams are the way to go. Our experience shows that the sustainable and cost-efficient way to build a strong in-house team is to bring in junior talents and help them grow.
To unlock the potential of junior talents, they require hands-on support. The optimal way to offer support is to provide juniors with the right amount of education, coaching and concrete tasks with varying levels of difficulty.
Growing new IT talent is a give and take kind of a relationship, and the more you put into it, the bigger wins you will receive.
We at Crowd Collective have years of experience in building in-house competence for various companies. Read more about how we tackle the challenge!
Read our article “How to involve more junior talents in development projects?”