IT4IT Recruiter: What are the technical skills an IT recruiter should possess to hire a .NET Developer?
You are about to start a recruitment campaign to hire a .NET developer or a .NET Core developer. But once you receive your applications and resumes, you have to decide who is good enough to get to an on-site technical interview. This requires a technical screening process.
What a lot of technical recruiters don't realize is that screening involves more than glancing through a resume. Why is that? On the one hand, good .NET developers are scarce so you don't want to overlook a candidate with potential and good programming skills. On the other, you don't want to invite weak candidates for an interview. This wastes the precious time of your IT team and coworkers.
So the question arises, how can you screen the .NET programming skills of your .NET developer candidates so that you interview the good candidates and filter out the bad ones? We have put together this guide to show what matters in .NET technology and how to screen candidates quickly and effectively. Are you ready? Let's start with the basics.
What is .NET?
.NET is a software development framework from Microsoft. It provides a controlled programming environment where software can be developed, installed, and executed mainly on Windows-based operating systems (this is changing with the introduction of .NET Core). It was Microsoft's response to the rapid growth of the Java platform and that's why many concepts (starting from languages' syntax and including the idea of executing programs on a virtual machine) of those two are similar.
The .NET platform supports many languages, like C#, Visual Basic .NET, F#, and C++ .NET. It also gives .NET developers a bunch of libraries and frameworks, making it very straightforward to create a large variety of applications (web, desktop, and mobile), including ones for the most sophisticated enterprise purposes. The main advantages of .NET include natural integration with other Microsofts products/tools like Office, the framework's maturity and stability, and great support from the .NET developer community.
What should an IT Recruiter know about .NET and .NET skills?
We have come up with a list of the most important things IT recruiters should know when it comes to .NET.
Just like in the Java environment, only being familiar with a specific language (in most cases it will be C#) is simply not enough. To be a productive .NET developer, you need to know libraries and frameworks, like ASP.NET, MVC, or Entity Framework. These are the building blocks of any non-trivial commercial application built using .NET.
It is important not to rule out candidates if they don't know a single framework from the requirements' list. .NET frameworks are often similar and if the candidate has a decent knowledge of one of them, they can easily migrate to the required one. Despite not knowing the library or framework in question, they should still understand the ideas and principles behind it. If you want to learn more, we will give examples of these relationships a bit further down.
Commercial experience is what really counts and brings real value to an employer. .NET knowledge from university, unless it's very practical, doesn't bring much to business coding. Of course, if you are looking for a junior .NET developer, education does matter. But remember that you can take into account programming experience, even if it is non-commercial. Ask if the candidate has done any hobby or open-source programming project that was done in .NET technology.
.NET Core Framework
.NET is constantly evolving at a rapid pace. Previously, a common limitation of .NET was problems with porting the framework to other hardware architectures and operating systems. This among other factors eventually led to the creation of the .NET Core framework. This is now open source and supports Windows, Mac, and Linux.
.NET Core hasn't replaced the previous version of .NET. For now, the two are being developed in parallel and it doesn't seem that .NET Core will replace .NET anytime soon. There are many applications built using .NET and they will still have to be maintained and updated. Not only that, updating an application from .NET to .NET Core could be hard or even impossible for technological and/or financial reasons.
What's the difference in .NET developer skill set needed between .NET and .NET Core?
Well, both are quite similar overall, with some differences in details depending on libraries and components. Generally speaking, a .NET developer should be able to get comfortable with using .NET Core pretty easily. That said, there are some specific parts of .NET like ASP.NET Web Forms, or .NET C++ language which currently aren't supported by .NET Core, and no one knows if they ever will be.
For now .NET Core is usually used in low-risk new projects that are just starting from scratch (startups etc.) It's possible to use some .NET components in .NET Core apps (but not the other way round). Some companies may try to rewrite their existing software into .NET Core, or just write new modules using .NET Core. To do this, there will be a demand for developers who know both .NET and .NET Core.
Due to the similarities between .NET and .NET Core, we will refer to both of them as .NET from here on out, pointing out differences if needed.
How to verify .NET developer skills in the screening phase
IT recruiters can use a few different screening methods to assess Dot NET developer skills. These can be based on anything from the candidate's resume, a technical interview or video calls, all the way to online coding tests.
Below you will find some useful and practical recruiting tips to help you verify .NET developer skills using each method.
3.1. Screening a.NET developer using their resume
As an IT recruiter, you can find some really valuable information in the resumes you get from .NET developers. But to unlock the valuable information they contain, you have to understand what is written there without getting confused by any of the .NET terms they use. If you are technical recruiter looking for a .NET developer, then you should at least be familiar with all of its frameworks, build tools, and other resources in order to know what you are looking for. You should be able to speak the same language as your candidates (or at least understand basics the candidate is talking about).
That's why we prepared this basic .NET glossary. Take a second to brush up on the terms it contains.
.NET developer skills
.NET glossary for technical recruiters
.NET framework versions .NET 1.0 – .NET 4.7.2
Languages C#, Visual Basic .NET, F#, C++ .NET
Desktop frameworks WPF, Windows Forms (old school)
Communication frameworks* WCF, ASP.NET Web API, 1-2, Web Services (old school)
IoC Containers Castle Windsor Container, Unity, Structure Map, Ninject, AutoFac
ORM Entity Framework 1-6, nHibernate 1-5, Linq2SQL (depreciated), ADO.NET
C# unit testing frameworks nUnit, SpecFlow, MSTest, xUnit
C# build tools TFS, Team City, Jenkins, Cruise Control .NET, Azure DevOps (old TFS)
.NET Core glossary for technical recruiters
.Net Core framework versions .NET Core 1.0-2.2
Languages C#,Visual Basic .NET, F#
Web frameworks ASP.NET Core MVC 1.0-2.2
Desktop frameworks None now but coming in .NET Core 3
Communication frameworks* Web Api is now integrated into ASP.NET Core MVC 1.0-2.2
IoC Containers Castle Windsor Container, Unity, Structure Map, Ninject, AutoFac
ORM Entity Framework Core 1.0-2.2
C# unit testing frameworks nUnit, MSTest, xUnit
Thank you,
Dhruv Dev Dubey
WhatsApp 78925-30528
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