Clients hungry for IT developers get top tips

End-users in need of freelance developers are being told they may shoot themselves in the foot if they mention online that their company uses Cordova.

In a series of tips for clients seeking development skills, a Hays IT guide says that advertising Cordova on your organisation’s website “could work against you.”

It comes after the recruiter featured a poll of 100,000 developers worldwide, in which Cordova emerged as the most-disliked when it came to libraries, frameworks and tools.

Microsoft’s Visual Basic 6 also scooped an unenviable ‘most-dreaded’ title, as the language which the largest proportion of developers expressed “no interest” in using in the future.

At the other end of the spectrum is Rust, the developers’ preferred language of choice for the third year in a row, voted the favourite by almost 8 in 10 respondents.

“The number of Rust developers is small, but a growing list of high profile companies, including Dropbox, Coursera, Mozilla and Postmates, use Rust in production,” said Sean Bave, vice president of Stack Overflow Talent, which runs the annual poll.

“As an organisation, it might be something you want to consider offering if you want to pique the interest of potential developers. If you already use Rust, then promote this on your website”.

Meanwhile, TensorFlow was the framework most loved by the developers, with 73% of respondents saying they want to work with it in the future.

This was closely followed by React -- last year’s most loved, but this year’s most wanted. And Kotlin, a newcomer in the poll, takes the title of ‘Second Most Loved’ language.

“Employers have to work hard to attract the right kind of freelance developers,” Bave said. “If you’re going to appeal to developers the then the first thing you need to do is understand them.

“They appreciate it when organisations make it clear that they know what developers are interested in and have put effort in trying to speak their language.”

He is also advising hiring companies that it is “worth making the technologies you offer a key part of your employer branding strategy, putting them front and centre on your website and in job listings, especially if they’re ones that developers are particularly interested in.”