Let’s be honest, this whole pandemic has caught everyone off guard. There aren’t many companies out there who haven’t been affected by it and in software development, the story is no different. Every company has had to move some if not all of its processes to a remote variant. And while for people who are already employees, the transition might have been easier, for people wanting to join the company, it’s a different tale.
And I say this because the recruitment process is one of the most important steps to get right. Why? Because it’s the first interaction potential employees have with your company. And if it’s a bad one… Well, you aren’t going to get a second date from most people.
So, with everything now done remotely even in terms of hiring, how do you make sure the candidate gets the best experience possible? Well, here are some clues and cues:
1. Be punctual in your remote hiring process meetings
I can’t overstate this enough. When you say Friday at 4 PM, it better be Friday at 4 PM. Don’t assume it’s easier for people to juggle their schedule now that they’re working remotely. For some, it might be, but it’s rather rude to assume it is. People’s time is important and if you don’t give it the respect it deserves, then they’re going to reconsider joining your company. This goes both ways of course so if you’re an employee and are not punctual… Really work on changing that
2. Don’t let only an online coding challenge decide if they’re good or not
One of the most, dare I say disturbing things I ever read in a job application, went something along the lines of: “If you pass this coding challenge, then a human will get in touch with you”. Not a colleague… A human. Just put that into perspective a bit. It deterred me from ever wanting to have anything to do with that company.
If you want to use an online coding challenge, then so be it, we at Upstack also have such a platform and I am one of those people who actually review challenges and figure out if a candidate is good or not. And while some of them fail at algorithm challenges (I’m going to be honest with you, close to 90% of devs I feel would fail those in general), they’re pretty good at… You know… Actual useful development skills.
The idea is that aside from the online coding platform we use, each and every candidate application is reviewed by either me or a software developer colleague of mine, since I can’t possibly know all languages and how they function. The human element is vastly superior in importance to any random algorithm a developer may or may not have studied before the actual challenge. Because in the end, people are the ones doing the job. You need the best candidates to build an amazing website or app and no amount of algorithm ingestion before a coding challenge is a good enough measure to decide if a candidate is good or not.
Leaving the fate of a potentially good developer into the hands of an exercise created by someone you haven’t heard of is unfair… And you will end up missing out on good people.
3. Don’t give the candidate a 6-hour (or longer) coding challenge
In my many ventures, I also came across this approach: a coding challenge that required… 6 hours to complete. To those of you who are tasked with such a thing, be wary of the fact that it might actually be a task that someone needs to work on, that is not important, and that these companies send out as a coding challenge for, you know, free solutions. If you’re a company that does this… Please, stop. I mean, you will get people who are desperate enough for a job that they’ll do it, but it seriously seems way too unethical.
In conclusion…
I think these are some ideas that could help your remote hiring become a better one. Software development is done by people for other people. And what’s the best way to hire the best people for a job? Treat them like people.
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Author: Andrei Moraru
