The way you interview technical candidates has a big impact on the quality of your hires. If your process is too long, you’ll lose good candidates to competitors. If it’s too short, you may end up hiring someone who’s not a good fit for the job. That’s why it’s so important to get the interview process right. But what does that mean, exactly? We asked developers what changes they’d like to see in your interview process, and here’s what they said.
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Technical interviews should be shorter
In a recent HackerRank survey, 75% of developers think technical interviews are broken. 57% of respondents agreed that technical interviews are broken, and 18% strongly agreed. The reasons for this response are many and include irrelevant interview questions, inadequate time limits, and the use of outdated interview tech. This is an urgent problem because developer dissatisfaction with technical interviews directly impacts hiring outcomes.
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The focus should be on problem-solving, not on trivia
In another poll conducted by HackerRank, 34% of developers reported that the quality of interview questions impacted their decision to accept a job offer. And another 26% of developers identified candidate experience as the main factor influencing their decision to accept a job offer. The candidate experience is defined by the fact of how well the recruiting handles the questions which should be on a conversational basis and not be like trivia. Word travels fast when it comes to interviews among developers and many will avoid attending interviews.
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Assessments should be realistic
When it comes to improving technical interviews, 65% of developers said they wanted more real-world questions. Consider posing real-world technical challenges instead. Not only will you better deliver on developer preferences, but you’ll also enable your hiring team to evaluate the skills a candidate actually needs on the job. And look at automating basic questions so that even non-technical hiring team members would be able to understand so that senior members of your team only need to go through fewer assessments (SIXER Skills enables automated marking book a demo to know more).
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Coding skills should be assessed in a realistic way
Technical candidates are growing increasingly frustrated with the algorithmic-style challenges that employers commonly use in interviews. Employers often rely on templates or formats to evaluate coding skills, which can be overly complex and fail to accurately reflect a candidate’s abilities. To address these issues, employers should work with their hiring and development teams to develop coding assessments based on specific projects and language capabilities. This approach ensures that assessments are fair, relevant, and provide a more positive experience for everyone involved.
If you’re looking to make changes to your technical interview process, keep these five things in mind. Your candidates will thank you for it!
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