Using Online Coding Test Platforms To Improve Technical Skills Assessment of Software Development Talent
The technology industry has the highest turnover rate for any industry. Competition for software development talent is high, and the recruitment team is under pressure to attract the best talent.
The pandemic events of this year have adversely affected numerous industries and associated employment opportunities. Organisations had to advance their technical capacity to remain operational, and the demand for software developers and IT-related roles remains high. Research conducted by Robert Half shows that “[s]oftware development, cloud migration and project management experience are top of the list for hiring managers going into 2021…”
Recruitment teams are under pressure to hire high-quality software developers and reduce potential mis-hires. The challenges experienced by hiring managers and technical recruiters can not only lead to a potential mis-hire but a bad candidate experience that results in unfilled positions. A bad candidate experience can delay the hiring pipeline; research shows that 63% of job seekers will likely reject a job offer because of a bad candidate experience (Source: Software Advice).
Hiring managers and technical recruiters need to work more collaboratively to have the most impactful technical hiring process.
The 3 main factors contributing to misalignment between technical recruiters and hiring managers
Three main challenges cause a misalignment between the technical recruiting team and hiring managers:
1.Failure to rapidly adapt to the industry shift from employer-centric to candidate-centric approach
The current market shift aims to acknowledge the candidate’s needs before the employers. However, hiring managers are thought to be slow to adapt to the change in market needs in order to offer candidates an experience. The advantage of a candidate-centric approach can fill the pipeline faster and save time assessing candidates.
2.Not efficient in filling the role on a limited timeline with high-quality talent
Technical recruiters are challenged by having to source and screen qualified candidates in the most efficient time. However, not being able to fill the hiring pipeline efficiently can be a result of limited candidate quality. Benchmark research by workable found that [a]long time to hire maybe a byproduct of a shortage of qualified candidates.
3. Lack of communication between technical recruiters and hiring managers
It is common for recruiters and hiring managers to not have effective collaboration during the hiring process, mainly due to miscommunication on hiring expectations. With industry competition to attract the attention of development talent in high demand, consequently these three challenges can lead to a bad candidate experience or potentially a mis-hire which can use more resources to refill the position.
According to recruiter advice from the co-founder of CodinGame Aude Barral, the cost of a mis-hire can be anywhere from 5 to 27 times an employee’s actual salary.
A mis-hire for a tech position that pays £45k per year could cost an organisation anywhere from £225k to £1.21million.
To hire software engineers who will be the right organisational, technical recruiters and hiring managers must agree on a recruitment process that can effectively evaluate technical skills—both when hiring internal software developers or an outsourced software development team from a vendor.
What approaches are helping hiring managers and technical recruiters collaborate more effectively?
Hiring managers and technical recruiters must have more communication in order to work more collaboratively. IT leaders need more efficient ways to assess software vendors capabilities.
Online coding test platforms are essential for organisations that have large scale software development operations. These platforms can improve the software developer recruitment process by enhancing the volume of qualified candidates for specific technologies, coding languages, and algorithms.
Code test platforms can streamline the technical assessment and overall hiring process. The online coding test platforms that have emerged as popular choices for organisations to reduce subjectivity and speed-up hiring are HackerRank, Codility, HackerEarth, CoderPad, Qualified, Predictive Assessment and Coderbyte.
Code assessment platforms can help technical recruiters and hiring managers to build an assessment process that effectively fills the pipeline with qualified candidates. Hiring managers can make efficient decision making, and IT leaders can be sure to onboard the right software vendor.
Here is how code assessment platforms can improve the assessment process:
1. Effective remote screening of candidates
Code assessment platforms such as CodePair by HackerRank platform enables hiring managers with the ability to evaluate a candidate’s approach to problem-solving and communication skills in an interactive real-time coding environment.
Codility’s feature Codelive offers a similar real-time coding environment to enable live collaboration with candidates.
The screening process improves as technical recruiters, and hiring managers can have faster feedback loops on candidates.
2. Effective assessment of software developers technical skill sets
Platforms such as Qualified and CoderPad approach assessing technical skills with the use of pair programming interviews. Pair programming is about collaboration, and it can be beneficial in determining how candidates interact with potential teammates while demonstrating their technical skillset to approaching problems. Additionally, pair programming can speed up the onboarding process to increase team collaboration immediately.
BlueOptima’s Predictive Assessment helps hiring managers, and technical recruiters identify software developers who can consistently deliver high-level solutions in a maintainable way. It can help the hiring process to determine for each developer, how compatible are their problem-solving skills with organisational coding standards.
It produces analytical data based on the assessment of the developers’ approach to problem-solving; therefore building a profile of individual developers’ problem-solving ability and compatibility with an organisation’s software development practice.
Concluding Thoughts
A mis-hire can be costly to an organisation, irrespective of size and location. The financial strain imposed on businesses due to the adverse effect of Covid-19 makes the task of improving retention and avoiding recruitment mistakes even more severe. With the average tech employee working earning £74,000, more care must be taken when hiring these specialised workers.
Online coding platforms are useful in improving the recruitment process and a cost-effective approach for organisations. The price range for coding platforms, HackerRank, Codility, HackerEarth, CoderPad, Qualified, Predictive Assessment and Coderbyte, ranges from $199 to $1,500 a month. These platforms can reduce the potential of a mis-hire for highly technical roles.
For example, industry-leading HackerRank has a team Platform that costs between $599 a month or $7,188 a year. Although it only supports algorithm challenges and simple programming problems — you cannot test front-end and back-end technologies, e.g. React, Python/Django, Ruby on Rails, etc. (Source analysis of the best Coding assessment platforms of 2020.) HankerRank assistance during technical interviews can eliminate one potential mis-hire, which is more than at least 32 annual subscriptions of this online coding platform.
Code assessment platforms are a credible solution for hiring managers and technical recruiters to better align on technical hiring goals.
