There is no single way of measuring the skills of a programmer. A good programmer doesn’t only mean having good coding skills. There are other aspects too that make a coder adept at dealing with programming challenges.
Larry Wall, who invented the pearl programming language, described three qualities of a good programmer – laziness, impatience and hubris. However, these qualities eventually converge at a programmer’s continuous learning capabilities and skills, leading to innovation.
Coding is a domain where new technologies and ideas surface continually. Good coders should grasp new things and hone their skills continuously. It is cumbersome to conduct a coder’s programming skill assessment as it involves different roles that analyze their specific abilities.
In this context, a role-based coding assessment platform works best in evaluating a coder’s skills. It provides a coding environment with real-life projects to assess the broader coding skills for specific roles. It offers tools and processes needed to develop software. A coder is given an interface to undertake a simulation exercise and perform a task within a specified time.
Mercer | Mettl I/O is a unique software solution equipped with the most sophisticated features to make a comprehensive assessment of the coders to ensure successful learning & development initiatives and recruitment drives.
A programmer can be easily evaluated on specific skills using a role-based coding assessment platform, but it doesn’t measure a coder’s laziness and impatience, as suggested by Larry Wall. However, the comprehensiveness of the analytical results assures concrete results. Let’s understand why a role-based coding assessment platform enables careful analysis of software development abilities.
It’s about making individuals undergo various tests and processes to evaluate their coding skills. These assessments are done using a real-life, hands-on project in a coding environment that provides a comprehensive overview of a coder’s skills and prowess. Such coding environments offer detailed reports and analysis of a coder’s thinking process.
The assessment of coding skills involves applying concepts and the thinking process of an individual while writing a code based on a given challenge. Several challenges emerge while assessing coders.
They are as follows:
There is no holistic approach to coding skill assessment. Therefore, companies miss out on the right methodology to assess the candidates. Excellent coding skills depend on how aptly an individual applies knowledge while programming.
It is essential to evaluate the candidates on real-life problems in programming. Similarly, in the corporate scenario, the upskilling of the employees can not be completed without giving them a platform to work on real-life projects.
The candidates’ final assessment depends on the analytical results that comprise statistics and insights from their overall performance. However, the lack of reliable and insightful analytics lead to dissatisfactory candidature.
The purpose of the role-based coding assessment is to use a comprehensive means of giving coders a research-based methodology to apply their coding and problem-solving abilities.
Mercer | Mettl I/O is a well-crafted tool. But let us first understand the software development roles for which it has been designed. In the domain of software development, various roles decide the entire coding and development process. Mercer| Mettl I/O has been designed as an assessment platform covering every function under coding.
The Mercer | Mettl I/O is a role-based coding assessment platform that provides a combination of multiple integrated development environments and tools. You can give a real-world, hands-on project to evaluate a candidate. Such coding assessment software is equally equipped for various other aspects, such as software development, testing and data sciences. It provides an industry-standard interface that offers customizable features that can be configured based on the specific needs during learning and development and recruitment processes.
Let’s look into various above mentioned software development roles that need a coding environment for testing the skills of a programmer.
While the user is navigating through the website, their entire visual experiences come under front-end development. All the interactive features on a website, including the menu, font, color scheme, animation and other aspects, are considered the front-end of a website.
The user-facing side of the website uses various types of stored data in a server. Back-end development is used to build and maintain the technology needed to bring all the elements together to support the visual experience.
A full-stack developer should have all the knowledge of front-end and back-end software development. The knowledge related to all the layers in software development is equally necessary for a full-stack developer. In a way, a full-stack developer can work on an idea towards the final product.
Data scientists are responsible for gathering structures and unstructured data and analyze them using various tools by implementing analytics for specific business results. Data scientists use the analytics and reporting tools to detect patterns, trends and relationships in the data sets.
DevOps engineers support the IT infrastructure for releasing the codes and its deployments. They work with software developers and system operators. They should have a good knowledge of different languages used for development. They should be able to create new codes and also maintain the source code.
QA engineers are responsible for ensuring the flawless functioning on the final developed product. They should be able to monitor every phase of software development and maintain the company’s standard while designing and developing them.
Coding is a vast domain and assessing someone for their particular skills is a time-consuming affair. Creating a coding environment helps in such specific purposes where you have to zero in on an individual or help your employees learn and upskill in a particular software development area.
The unique coding assessment platform – Mercer | Mettl I/O comprises all the needed features and options to comprehensively assess a coder. It is web-based and factors in everything that impacts the candidate’s assessment.
It helps in making the cognitive knowledge easily comprehensible and real for the users. Working on this coding interface makes it much easier to train a candidate for the relevant skills. Mercer | Mettl’s I/O coding assessment platform is easy to use and can be easily customized for various assignments, respective to different software development roles.
As the above image suggests, hiring and skilling programs involve 4 steps that encompass important ideas related to software programming.
Upskilling and hiring are the most important domains that seek such coding environments. And every organization looks for some promising ways to cover both the domains for better results. Mercer | Mettl I/O is equipped with all the essential features that support coding skill assessment and the learning & development process, using crucial insights and analytics.
A role-based coding assessment platform works efficiently for learning and development. For example, in your organization, some people may wish to upskill or learn and understand the advancements in the software development domain. Make a comprehensive assessment of the candidates and analyze the essential technical competencies needed to be acquired by the employees for enhanced efficiency.
Consider a scenario where a candidate applies for a developer’s role and you, as a business owner, want to be sure about the candidate’s skills. You can frame a set of questions related to the job profile and let the candidate work on it. The candidate may answer those questions well. However, such evaluations don’t depict a clear picture, as applying the same knowledge can be different for different individuals. The practical aspect of knowledge lends more transparency.
The role-based coding assessment platform from Mercer | Mettl is a highly sophisticated tool with essential features that easily create a coding environment. It works on cloud technology and the portal can be accessed from anywhere.
We collaborated with a renowned insurance company from Europe that wanted to reskill 12,000+ employees across 15+ geographies. It was a cumbersome task that required strategic execution. The key challenges were:
Mercer | Mettl did an extensive study of the insurance industry and categorized the overall strategy into three steps.
It involved understanding the client’s needs and skill mapping. Clustering of the candidates for further assessment based on their needs in skill development.
Putting employees through various web-based assessment tools to understand their personality and functional knowledge.
It is the analysis of the extensive reports that feature deep analytics and data-driven insights, depicting a clearer picture of the learning and development program.
With such extensive analysis, the company got a fair idea of its prospects and how it should go about reskilling its employees with concrete steps. The insights helped the company to have a fair idea of the impact of automation, understand the need for an on-demand workforce and the need and methodology of upskilling its employees.
The Mercer | Mettl I/O is a complete role-based coding assessment platform that helps in learning & development and recruitment of the skillful coders. You can use it to hire an Avant-grade coder and for your internal training purposes or internal projects. We at Mercer | Mettl provide full support so that your experience while using our solution remains seamless.
Originally published July 6 2020, Updated August 9 2021
Vipul Srivastav is a seasoned marketing professional with expertise in branding and communication. He writes on numerous web platforms to share his views and experiences on various topics. In his free time, he does photography, reads fiction, listens to U2, and stays curious about the outer space.
Online coding tests are used in the technical recruitment process to screen programmers and coders. Online programming tests usually consist of MCQs and simulators to test their knowledge and hands-on skills.
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