The demand for a good pool of tech candidates has risen significantly in the current market -they are getting more opportunities than ever. However, an inefficient screening process, limited technical evaluation and unreasonably designed coding test questions deprive them of the most deserving candidates. Some SMEs attempted to upgrade and digitize their recruitment processes, but using outdated or inefficient technology has not brought about tangible gains. It is no surprise that hiring developers and tech professionals are increasingly becoming challenging and competitive for most organizations.
If you reflect on what goes awry during your hiring process, you’ll realize that recruiting technical talent is not complicated. It’s about refining the process. The key to understanding candidates’ potential lies in assessing their on-the-job performance. Therefore, not being able to evaluate their skills holistically and in real-time is an obstacle.
You must provide candidates with a comprehensive programming test to assess the programming skills before hiring a coder. Only then can you fairly measure their ability – for example, ask the candidates to debug and test a specific code. Even though debugging and testing are essential aspects of the programming process, very few candidates get their code right in their first attempt. Sometimes, even the simplest of tasks can filter candidates to enable you to acquire a proficient pool. However, this programming assessment is typically given in the hiring process and not in the initial stages, leading to wastage of resources.
Hence, inefficiencies must be eliminated to minimize these difficulties, bolster quality decision-making and speed up the time-to-hire. How does one do that? By employing the right set of coding assessments to select the best candidates who are seamless fits.
Coding assessment is a comprehensive evaluation approach of a candidate’s technical talent. A hiring manager filters out quality technical talent from a vast pool by using a combination of knowledge and application-based techniques such as MCQs and simulators to measure job-relevant skills.
An online coding test also yields some interesting insights. Hiring managers can track students’ performance on each question. Therefore, you can immediately spot topic areas that prove problematic and appear to be discriminating against good candidates. During the test, the progress of individual coders, called a grade trajectory, can also be plotted, allowing you to understand which candidates were close to their final mark a few minutes before the coding test.
Coding assessments elucidate whether the applicant can fulfill the essential criteria and job requirements. A meaningful talent evaluation from the onset ensures that the ensuing steps enable successful hiring. Hence, coding assessments are best suited before the interview round and should be administered as a part of technical screening.
Coding assessments is the process of simultaneously testing and evaluating thousands of technical candidates’ skills and experience against pre-decided parameters. It is a filtration process between receiving an application and hiring a candidate.
Let’s take an example: Hiring managers are seeking back-end Java developers at scale. They also want them to possess basic SQL knowledge of writing REST APIs. This is a specific requirement, but the candidate pool is vast. Hence, hiring managers need to create a filter to assess every candidate’s skills across their requirements and scout the potentials. They enable technical screening and micro-analyze the candidates by focussing on their:
Programming assessment verifies each candidate’s fundamental and advanced skills, ensuring that the employers don’t have to undertake time-consuming interviews with applicants, who are neither qualified nor suited for a particular position. You’ll be amazed at the remarkable number of candidates technical screening weeds out.
The programming assessments helps HR understand a programmer’s capability to learn and comprehend. This provides insights into the extent of knowledge candidates can apply and analyze, and a baseline understanding of their technical abilities, giving the company a much needed competitive advantage at the onset.
Also, valuable, evidence-based analytics on candidate potential and performance deter hiring managers from shortlisting based on bias. Hence, the organization is only left with the best candidate pool for the interview process, accelerating the hiring process holistically and fairly.
Here’s What The Tech Screening Deduces. It Includes, And Is Not Restricted To:
Whether a small, mid-sized or a Fortune 500 organization, any organization can employ technical screening to test job-relevant skills and sharpen their hiring strategies – be it to assess the millennial with basic programming skills or check a mid or senior developer’s sophisticated expertise. Technical screening helps bag the best talent for any level or role in no time.
Here is an example of two scenarios where technical screening is handy:
The campus hiring season has begun. Companies are looking to hire in bulk. But with a significant number of candidates having similar qualifications, how does one shortlist all-rounders? The answer lies in technical screening. Before selecting for the interview, technical screening assesses, and filters engineers based on technical or domain skills, cognitive skills, behavioral and personality traits, effective communication, core skills and suitability. They are then graded on predefined parameters without manual intervention. Instead of believing the candidates’ projected impression and over-stated abilities, screening assessments like coding assessments test their actual knowledge and proficiency. This helps in making informed hiring decisions and building the best team.
In the best employment markets, most proficient candidates are hired in a very short span. Hence, hiring managers uplevel their lateral hiring strategy by assessing technical, behavioral and cognitive skills via technical screening. The swiftness, mindfulness and accuracy of technical screening ensure companies can hire highly qualified mid-level and senior coders. Subsequently, it also prevents any organization from making shortsighted hiring decisions and ensures that its lateral hiring aligns with its strategic hiring goals.
There is a considerable difference between a candidate’s knowledge and abilities. It is vital to create parity between the two. Technical screening enables it and increases the quality of candidates you invite to the interview, making an otherwise time-consuming and tedious hiring process, engaging, dynamic and swift.
Here’s How Technical Screening Positive Impacts Hiring:
A right technical fit is difficult to find for several reasons. Online coding assessments as part of screening measure is a reasonably short process that begins early in your hiring process. Thus, its accurate overview of performance and potential based analysis helps assess candidates’ knowledge and not who they are. This enables finding suitable candidates faster, thereby improving the quality of hire.
Hiring managers, assessing candidates with limited development knowledge, prefer to select them based on favorable interactions, shared interests, assumptions or peer approval. This prevents organizations from identifying and hiring the best candidate for the job. Online coding assessments or programming assessments hence shortlists and evaluates candidates fairly, without any subconscious prejudice.
Technical screening ensures that your hiring decision is based on the right data, science and technology. As we mentioned earlier, candidates are observed and graded on various factors. These collective observations backed by real evidence are most effective at predicting success. They strongly validate the hiring manager's decision and eliminate selection on assumptions or intuition.
Screening, interviewing, and decision-making are all vital yet typically lengthy and arduous processes. Add to that the resources wasted on wrong candidates. Hence, technical screening as a recruitment tactic reduces the strain on various resources by speeding up the filtering and hiring process. With two quick and efficient screening rounds, tech screening evaluates candidates at scale and eliminates unfit candidates. You are eventually left with the best from which to choose.
Top talent usually has a host of opportunities at their disposal. HRs don't often take cognizance of it, leading to high turnover. But technical screening's additional benefit gives you access to a candidate's comprehensive profile. With detailed scores and insights, hiring managers hire the best, and those worth retaining, thereby increasing the retention rate.
Programming assessments helps identify candidates worth further consideration. After all, the more clarity you have in the initial selection, the better are your chances of interviewing and hiring worthy fits.
Here are five simple steps to enable technical screening:
Using the combination of MCQ+ simulators makes for an accurate recipe for successful hiring. It is a transparent, fair, and time-saving package that validates the candidate’s ability. Subsequently, technical screening negates the alienation of top talent.
Think about a test with 500 students appearing in it (commonly in campus hiring), with questions ranging from essays, short answer types to any subjective type tests. Despite the efficiency, there would be an unavoidable delay in the assessment process.
Conversely, setting up an MCQ assessment would ease the process for a recruiter. Auto-graded multiple-choice questions can help the assessors grade the applicants quickly, without labor.
Irrespective of your learning, its practical application on a certain platform is the most precise and apt measure to evaluate its extent. The best way to analyze a candidate’s coding skills is by giving a programming test online. Coding simulators help evaluate the candidates’ hands-on experience and ability to solve a problem in their desired programming language. Hiring managers can evaluate the coders on several parameters such as code quality, efficiency, correctness and scalability, etc. An online programming assessment can be enabled on a coding test platform where you can assess the candidates on the test cases of your choice and code’s effectiveness concerning time and space complexities.
Hence, go for an all-around comprehensive evaluation of your candidates before making any corporate decision. Along with evaluating candidates multiple-choice questions, leverage the power of a real coding environment where coders are only assessed based on their quality of code and modus operandi.
Today’s market is replete with many online coding test platforms that enable swift and seamless technical hiring, offering numerous advantages. With many online coding assessment platforms in the market, selecting the right coding assessment platform must be more precise.
Hence, your shortlisting process should depend on a player’s ability to offer ‘three pillars‘ that simplify and scale your assessment and hiring process to make informed decisions.
It includes:
Technical skills are extensive and ever-changing. Hence, when shortlisting a coding assessment platform, ascertain the range of programming languages and frameworks for all significant coding job roles. It should be diverse to cover every existing and new-age language, framework, technology, topics, and skills requirements. Also, assess their ability to provide accurate coding test questions for micro-skills and concepts within coding and development. In many ways, this provides an accurate picture of a candidate’s all-around fit for a required position.
An eclectic mix of expertise and application-based questions is the future of candidate assessments and recruitment. They cumulatively offer a holistic overview of a programmer’s aptitude to undertake various existing and future coding tasks. Knowledge-based questions are your first filtration process that shortlists based on essential knowledge, concept, application, and analysis. Afterward, the selected few are assessed practically via application-based questions that provide a real sense of candidates’ ability by asking them to mirror real-world challenges. As candidates create codes from scratch, a stimulating attribute of the best coding assessment platform is swift auto-grading to eliminate bias and ensure evidence-based hiring decisions.
An efficient online coding assessment platform is the third pillar that enables quality hiring at scale. Choose a vendor based on a dynamic platform that is comprehensive, user-friendly, and offers an easy-to-use interface for the candidate and the assessor. As a recruiter, you must be able to schedule coding tests online, screen candidates, and roll out online interviews, seamlessly, with an apparent oversight on progress and performance. Pick the appropriate online coding test platform based on provisions, such as customization, hands-on skill support, swift auto-evaluation, scalability, a suite of anti-cheating solutions, result validation, and proficient tracking of the tech hiring funnel. The best coding assessment platform should smoothly integrate and be location-agnostic for all. Consistency and support promptness throughout the platform’s usage is another critical way of assessing the best coding platform.
A substantial coding assessment platform fine-tunes your assessment and recruitment requirements by cumulating all the essential features mentioned above. Hence, the absence of these features leads to an incomplete evaluation and hiring, consequently, an irrelevant service provider.
Hiring has now become much smarter with the use of automated programming tests for screening and interviewing candidates. With almost all the requirements fulfilled, Mettl is by-far the top-most choice for all the tech hiring managers present.
Mercer | Mettl has an expansive roster of online screening tools that enable a comprehensive hiring process. Our technical screening services harness the crowd’s wisdom and select eligible and qualified candidates for the interview round. A combination of application-based questions, and simulation-based tests, screen and evaluate candidates quickly and fairly. Also, data and valuable insights enable you to hire the best.
Here’s how Mercer | Mettl’s coding based screening services help organizations and hiring managers improve accuracy and hiring quality:
We offer an unprecedented range of programming languages and frameworks, available for all significant coding job roles. The diversity of our coverage of every existing and new-age language, framework, technology, topics, and skills requirements, is equally unmatched. A rich repository of 100,000+ coding assessment questions for 300+ skills and the landscape of our offerings give an accurate picture of a candidate’s competency and all-round fit at every level. You can choose from a set of readily-available standardized programming tests or customize them as per your need in no time.
Mercer | Mettl I/O is the first-of-its-kind, all-in-one coding assessment platform. This highly sophisticated and customizable tool assesses programming ability by providing a comprehensive coding environment for all major programming roles (Front-end, back-end, database, full-stack, data science, DevOps, QA engineers, etc.) supporting all major languages and technologies. You name it; we have it. Mercer | Mettl I/O is well-suited for simplifying and improving lateral hiring processes at a large and small scale. In-built with real-time, insightful reports, this efficient screening tool is an ideal programming assessment for hiring with its auto-evaluation of codes and best-in-class integrated development environment (IDE) that measure an experienced candidate’s real ability.
Mercer | Mettl’s coding assessment platform is embedded with a list of simulators that evaluate a fresher’s essential coding skills in various languages. Simulators give recruiters the liberty to test real coding skills in over 20 programming languages with a supremely user-friendly interface. Codelysis enables assessing and hiring the best freshers at scale.
This simulator based coding assessment is incorporated with a few much needed state-of-the-art features such as:
Identify the right candidate for any kind of programming role with Mercer | Mettl’s programming assessment offering real-world project capabilities. Assess candidates for front-end, back-end, full stack, QA, devOps, data science and many other roles. Our quick and objective evaluations use auto-grading through pre-defined test cases.
Tech recruitment is evolving, and coding assessment has gradually become integral to it. And why not, coding assessment is being designed for modern, diverse and dynamic technical hiring managers who want to optimize their hiring experience. Gone are the days when HRs were just given an ambiguous job description, and asked to ascertain the employees by looking at their resume or interacting with them. Today, HRs want to hire real coders after assessing their potential. Coding assessment platform helps them understand how candidates think and code in an actual coding environment. Giving HRs multiple means of assessments, such as a coding test, programming test, challenges, pair-programming, etc., can enable organizations to hire more influential tech professionals. The level of empowerment that comes with coding assessments has scaled the recruitment pipeline, also preparing the hiring managers for the future.
A coding test or programming test is the ability to check a coder on the job potential and performance in the real world. Such tests offer recruiters significant insights into a candidate’s abilities. Coding tests for hiring include a combination of MCQ and simulators to ascertain the candidate’s knowledge of tools, frameworks, libraries, and the hands-on experience on the required skill or technology. It provides all-around evidence-based evaluation, eliminates bias, and is a resource for all kinds of developers- novice or expert.
Interview coding test is a game-changing interview approach, wherein the hiring manager assesses a coder’s proficiency during an interview using embedded code simulators. This agile and interactive interview coding test practice consists of the coders and the assessors. The coders write the code, and the assessors (interviewer) guides them through the process to gauge their skills in real-time.
An online coding test can be conducted on an online coding platform that is comprehensive, user-friendly, and offers an easy-to-use interface for the candidate and the assessor. The live development environment is enhanced by audio, video, and chat, enabling easy communication. Online coding tests hosted on an online coding platform allow the hiring manager to schedule tests, screen candidates, and roll out online interviews seamlessly, with a clear oversight on progress and performance. The coding platform makes your test location-agnostic.
Originally published December 4 2019, Updated August 5 2021
Shirisha has been helping countless brands gain traction with her content. Her deep understanding of the education sector and sound knowledge of technical skills have helped her structure the most creative solutions for key stakeholders. Shirisha has also ghosted pieces for several industry honcho’s successfully published both online and offline. When she's not keeping up with the world, you're sure to find her catching up on bollywood stories or gramming for fun.
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