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Insights & Stories by Nidhi Kala

Explore Nidhi Kala’s blogs for thoughtful breakdowns of tech hiring, development culture, and the softer skills that build stronger engineering teams.

Hiring Tools

Subjective Match on HackerEarth Assessments: Make Technical Screening Smarter

In tech or coding assessments, subjective questions are open-ended questions that require the candidate to provide a more detailed or nuanced response than a simple yes or no answer. These questions are often used to assess the candidate's understanding of a particular concept, their ability to think critically, and their problem-solving skills.

Let's be honest — subjective questions are an integral part of the technical screening process, but they are really hard to evaluate. There is no standardized format or set of guidelines for subjective questions in tech or coding assessments. This can make it difficult for recruiters to compare responses across different candidates and assessments.

Evaluating subjective questions requires a significant amount of effort. Recruiters need to carefully read and analyze each response, which can be time-intensive, especially when they have to evaluate a large number of candidates.

Delays in evaluation creates a domino effect — delaying all further processes and throwing the time-to-hire metric into a tizzy! Candidates don't get timely updates about their interview status, which also impacts the candidate experience your recruiting team is trying to maintain.The good news is, you can avoid this chaos. Thanks to HackerEarth’s newly introduced Subjective Match feature.

Enter: Subjective Match, a smarter evaluation method for assessments

There are three evaluation methods by which you can evaluate subjective questions:

Method #1: AI evaluation

Our AI evaluation method (earlier known as the auto-evaluation method) uses ChatGPT and HackerEarth’s proprietary AI models to evaluate a candidate’s answers automatically. The prerequisite is that recruiting teams need to provide a base answer before sending the tests to candidates. HackerEarth’s AI will compare this base answer to the candidate’s submission and evaluate its accuracy.There is also an option to compare the expected answer and the one answered by the candidate. For this, you can simply enable the View Difference option.

Here’s an example of how our AI evaluates the differences between the expected answer for a question, and the candidate’s version.

This is how HackerEarth Assessment

The above screengrab shows sentences highlighted in red which have not been included by the candidate in their answer when compared to the expected answer.This evaluation method is best-suited for long, text-based answers and we recommend that you do not use it for numerical strings.

Also read: 4 Ways HackerEarth Flag the Use of ChatGPT in Hiring Assessments

Method #2: Keyword evaluation

The keyword evaluation method lets admins define the specific keywords that should appear in the answer. If the candidate’s submission includes the exact keyword, they’ll be scored accordingly.Things you need to know while using the keyword evaluation method:

The maximum length of keywords should be 30 characters.
At least 1 keyword should be present to execute the evaluation process
The maximum limit for the keywords is 15.
At least one keyword score option must be equal to the maximum score of the question.

Here’s the criteria to allocate the keyword score:

Organize the keyword options in descending order based on their scores.
Verify whether the keyword is present in the candidate’s response at least once using AI.
Allocate associated score as the question’s score when the keyword is found.
Repeat these steps for the next high-scoring keyword that the admin has set up if the keyword is not found.

Note: The verification done here is case insensitive.

This evaluation method is especially useful for evaluating questions related to data analytics (MS-Excel), mathematical numerical, or fill-in-the-blank questions.

You can use this for process roles like BA, data scientist, financial analyst, market analyst and business analyst where the outcome could be many and each outcome has a different impact.

For example, while working on a data set, the conclusion or outcome could be different and you can have a different score for each conclusion.

Like, in the image below, if the output is 14, the candidate will get a 100% score. If the output is 9 or anything else around this number, the candidate will get a 80% score. For any other output besides the one listed below, the candidate will get zero as the score.

This is how keyword evaluation is done by HackerEarth Assessments for the answers submitted by candidate

This is how keyword evaluation is done by HackerEarth Assessments for the answers submitted by candidate

Method #3: Manual evaluation

If you’d rather skip the AI and use your personal judgment to evaluate candidate submissions, then we have made that option available to you as well! You can manually check the candidate’s submission with the base answer you added when you were setting up the assessment.Note: The base answer will also be present in the candidate’s report to make the comparison easier.

Witness a smoother evaluation experience with Subjective Evaluation

For recruiters and hiring managers, our Subjective Evaluation feature will change the way you evaluate candidate submissions.Not only will it make the screening process seamless but also reduce the time and effort in conducting the manual checks for each submission efficiently. And, if you have only tried out our AI method yet, we recommend that you explore the keyword evaluation method, too, and check the difference.Until next time, happy hiring!

Candidate Experience

7 New HackerEarth Assessments Product Updates in 2024 You Should Know About

A tech interview is one of the most strenuous things that a programmer can be put through. Companies like Google and Facebook put prospective employees through as many as 8 to 9 rounds of interviews before making a hiring decision. Each round is tougher than the previous round and the number of mistakes that you can make is directly proportional to it.

Most mistakes are hardly ever technical. They're mostly related to interpersonal skills or the lack thereof!

Here are 5 ways in which you can mess up your tech interview.

Talking too much

Alright. You're interviewing with Google. You're excited! That's understandable. But being too excited can cost you that job like it did for Prakash Tibrewal.

Here is his story.

"During campus selections, I had an interview with Facebook. I had butterflies in my stomach!

The interview duration was 50 min. When the interview started, the interviewer was talking about what he was working on (just to make me comfortable). I was so excited that I asked him questions for the next 25 minutes.

That, believe it or not, was my biggest mistake. After those first 25 minutes, he gave me a problem to solve. While I figured out the algorithm quickly, I couldn't finish writing the code in time.

My interview as over after round 1.

This experience taught me that I must gauge a situation and learn to ask questions at the right time."

While asking too many questions can be unfavorable, asking a few or no questions can be interpreted as a display of lack of interest in the company. It is important to get the balance right.

However, as a rule of thumb, it is better to let the interviewer do most of the asking.

Being over confident

Coding interviews can be a nerve-racking ordeal. You may know the answer to every question but nervousness can get the better of you and you are prone to making silly mistakes.

Prakash Deivakani let nervousness get the better of him at his interview with Facebook.

Here's his story.

"I was interviewed by Ajay Somani of Facebook (Red in Topcoder). I was a grey coder by then. He asked me to solve a problem on the board.

I made a mistake and he asked, "Are you sure your solution is correct?" I identified the mistake and corrected it.

He asked again, "Are you sure your solution is correct?". Again, I identified the mistake and corrected it.

He asked yet again, "Are you sure your solution is correct?". While I remained silent, he said, "Your solution is correct. You can wait outside."

There are a few coders who are overconfident bordering on arrogant. It is very important to be confident yet humble. Any sign of arrogance is just going to tell the recruiter that you could be a bad team player.

Find that sweet spot between confidence and humility and you should be fine.

Taking the competition into office

Do some ground work about the company you are going to interview with. Who knows, using your favorite device might not go down too well with your prospective employer.

Here's what Doug Luce found out.

"I pulled out an iPad mid-interview to google the interviewer's question. He became visibly agitated and told me I couldn't do that.

The rest of the interview went downhill from there."

We're not quite sure if he was upset about the iPad or the fact that he was googling the question.

Rajat Khandelwal also had a similar experience.

"On the day of interview, I went to the Google office and just as I reached there, I realized that the bag I had was the one I got from InMobi. I didn't think ahead and carried that bag. I don't know but I like to think that it was one of the factors.

The interviewer asked a few questions, which I answered as best as I could. And in the end I asked him this question:

I've heard rumors that all good projects at Google are moved to MtV office so working at Google India is not as great as the name suggests. How true is this?

As soon as I asked the question, I realized that it was inappropriate. Even though my interview was great, my application was terminated at that level."

It's just that simple. Don't ask inappropriate questions or google your interviewer's questions.

Being too eager about the perks and privileges

IT companies set benchmarks in spoiling their employees. From free lunches and unlimited snacks to family severance packages and free health insurance—IT companies have probably covered every possible perk and privilege. This doesn't mean that you ask for it.

Naveen Kumar found it out the hard way.

"I was making a jump from Google to Facebook and I'd heard about the great perks that the Facebook office provides. I was particularly interested in the exotic meals that they provided—so excited that I asked a lot of questions about the meals and other benefits at Facebook to the interviewer.

I think the interview went off quite well, but I never heard back from them. Maybe they thought I was greedy."

Maybe they did. Questions about perks and benefits should be reserved for the HR preferably after you receive a job offer. Stay away from what's-in-it-for-me questions till then.

Not getting enough sleep before the interview

Whether its nervousness or plain old fun, lack of sleep before a big day has never helped anyone. Especially before an interview.

Nakul Agarwal made this mistake and he lost it all.

"I had just completed an interview with DirectI from 2 AM - 4 AM.

Earlier that day I had given two written tests for DirectI (for around 4 hours).

Yet there I was sitting in a black suit all ready for my interview at 5:30 AM with Intel India Pvt. Ltd.

I also had an Nvidia interview at 10 AM.

You can imagine the stress and exhaustion.

So I walk in, he asks me to sit down and asks my name. I give a smile and tell him my name. He then directly starts with the technical questions.

Interviewer: Can you write code for merge sort?

Me: Do you really want me to write the code for merge sort? Won't an explanation suffice? (I mean it is a well known algorithm! What can you possibly test by that?!)

Interviewer: Yes. Please write the code.

Me (writing on the paper) - void mergesort(int a[], int n) { }

Me: Do you really want me to write the code?

Interviewer: Yes

Me: I am not able to write it.

Interviewer (Smiles): Thanks. That will be enough.

Me: Thanks (A sigh of relief)

I go to my room and sleep like a child. I got late for Nvidia test next day :P and still finished first and went back to sleep. Like a child.

Now that's how you screw up interviews.

I didn't get through DirectI, Intel or Nvidia."

Always get enough sleep before your interview. Also, try to space interviews and schedule them for different days.

AI Recruiting

7 New HackerEarth Assessments Product Updates You Should Know About

This year, as the industry went through a hiring freeze, we at HackerEarth took the time to elevate our product lineup so that recruiters are better equipped to face the post-freeze challenges and expectations.So, we rolled out some out-of-the-ordinary product features aimed at making tech hiring more easier, better, and a stress-free experience (who wants more of that eh?).Some of these ideas came from our product ambassadors, some from internal dialogues within the team— and at every stage we focused on creating feature updates that would help tech recruiting teams across the globe.So without further ado, let’s dive right in!

7 product HackerEarth Assessments features to revitalize tech interviews

1. Role-based test creation process

HackerEarth Assessments has always been known for its easy-to-use test creation flow, but we have now gone one-step further and made the process role-based. So, you can choose the role you want to assess for from a drop down menu, and our AI-powered system will automatically generate a template for you. You can further customize the generated assessment for your exact needs.

The best part? The whole process of test creation can be cut down to 5 minutes or less!

We have 20 pre-defined roles available now, and we intend to add more to the stack. This includes high-demand roles like Full stack- Django/React, Full stack- Django/Angular, Full stack- Django/Spring/ React, Full stack- Django/Spring/Angular, Data engineer, and DevOps engineer.

New role-based assessments at Hackerearth

New role-based assessments at Hackerearth

2. AI-based and keyword based evaluation of programming and subjective questions

We have enhanced our auto-evaluation engine to include AI-based and keyword-based evaluation of programing and subjective questions. Let’s break this down further:

The AI-based evaluation uses ChatGPT and proprietary tools to evaluate long-form answers. It is best-suited for Agile/ Scrum and other process roles — making it easier to evaluate the assessments for these roles.
The new keyword-based subjective evaluation method will auto-evaluate a candidate's answer by letting admins define keywords that should appear in the answer. This is especially useful for evaluating tests related to data analytics where MS Excel is used, or assessments that use mathematical/numerical, or fill in the blanks kind of questions.

3. Smart Browser

SmartBrowser, a HackerEarth Assessments feature enables a plagiarism-free coding assessment environment

Recruiters and engineering leaders rightfully worry about the plagiarism that might occur when candidates work on take-home coding assessments.

Maybe they open multiple tabs during the test, screen share and record the test window, or they might run the test window within a virtual machine — possibilities of plagiarism are endless. And that’s why, today when AI tools have become rampant, it has become easier to crack coding assessments.To keep the sanctity of our assessments intact, HackerEarth’s product team came up with a solution called Smart Browser. This is a desktop application which recruiters can opt for when they want to ensure strict proctoring during assessments.Smart Bowser offers additional proctoring settings such as:

Disabling copy-pasting
Restricting candidates to full-screen mode
Restricting candidates from capturing screenshots, recording, or screen sharing the test window
Logging out on leaving the test interface so that the candidates cannot exit the test environment and use another tool for test completion

Also, read: HackerEarth Assessments + The SmartBrowser: Formula for Bulletproof Tech Hiring

4. Candidate reporting

Reports provide insights on maintainability, reliability, security, cyclomatic complexity, code quality, and benchmarking to make data-driven recruiting decisions.With the help of a detailed candidate report, you'll be able to make a quick shortlisting decision while providing insights on:

the candidate's performance based on the assessment they submitted
how or where the candidate would rank against the larger developer community

Overall, these insights will help you get real-time data and the quality of your talent pool. You can see candidate insights based on the date range

5. Skill tests analytics graph

This feature allows recruiting teams to gain a holistic overview of a candidates’ skill set via a spider graph that compares the candidate’s performance against the test average.You can also use this feature to compare the performance of two or more candidates, and make an accurate selection based on their individual skill levels. This is how the HackerEarth Assessments compares the candidate’s performance against the test average

This is how the HackerEarth Assessments compares the candidate’s performance against the test average

6. Improved candidate experience

While making these feature changes, we were also cognizant of how these changes would affect a candidate taking these tests. Candidate experience has been an important factor guiding our product philosophy and we have made advancements on that front including.

Introducing multiple code snippets: Our IDE comes integrated with multiple code snippets, which can be used for real-time code tests and pair programming to check a candidate’s coding skills on-the-go.
ChatGPT integration: We have also worked on a ChatGPT integration for a smoother coding experience. Just like the Smart Browser, this too is an optional feature for those recruiting teams who would like to allow their candidates access to ChatGPT during the assessments.

Also, read: How Does HackerEarth Combat the Use of ChatGPT and Other LLMS in Tech Hiring Assessments?

7. Improved D&I

The Assessments platform has a built-in option for hiding Personal Identifiable Information (PII) so that candidates can sign in using a pseudonym and take assessments. The recruiting team will only be able to see the candidate’s test submission and not their race, gender, or ethnicity; thereby bringing down the chances of unconscious bias hampering the selection process.

In the same vein, we have introduced a feature called R-rated question flagging. This feature highlights offensive words in the question or problem statements used for creating assessments.

Let’s say you were creating your own custom problem statement. Our system would flag any potential instances of sexist, racist, or potentially offensive language and help you remove them before adding the question to the assessment and making it public.

R-rated question flagging helps eliminate gender-based tone and improves the diversity and inclusion efforts.

R-rated question flagging helps eliminate gender-based tone and improves the diversity and inclusion efforts.

And that’s all. If any of these product advancements ignited a spark of curiosity in you, you can ask for a demo or try out HackerEarth platform for a free 14-day trial!

AI Recruiting

How Do You Get Senior Engineers to Take Coding Assessments

I recently came across this post on Reddit, and though it was posted about 3 years ago, it wonderfully encapsulates every senior engineer’s aversion towards technical assessments. This well-known aversion always comes up in conversations with engineering leads and tech recruiters, and someone invariably asks — how do senior hires react to the coding tests on your platform?There are two perspectives at play here.

First, there is the business need to hire developers with proven skill, and a coding test is a proven way of assessing skills.
Second, is a senior engineer’s desire to be valued for the portfolio they have built, and the skills already at display.

As the Redditor posted – engineers with years of project experience that is publicly available on platforms like GitHub and StackOverflow do not take easily to being assessed, and then ghosted. A Reddit post on senior engineers

Image Source

So, how does one reach a middle ground in this case? Before diving into the solutions, let’s understand the reasons why senior engineers don’t want to take coding assessments.

Reasons why senior engineers are reluctant about taking coding assessment tests

Reason #1: Lack of trust in coding assessments

Senior engineers feel that assessment tests don't accurately reflect their practical skills and knowledge gained over the years. In fact, they feel that the topics covered in assessment tests are too basic or perhaps not relevant to their specialization.

Reason #2: It doesn’t tackle real-world problems

Forums like Quora are great places to understand the developer perspective on take-home assessments. A Quora user shared that these interviews don't represent the real-world problems, highlighting that:

In A Quora post, the responder shares that senior candidates feel that assessments do not highlight real-world problems

In A Quora post, the responder shares that senior candidates feel that assessments do not highlight real-world problems

According to this Quora user, coding interviews work well for senior engineers who cram the interview instead of solving real-world problems.

Reason #3: They experience fear of failure

Imagine a senior engineer who takes the coding assessment but fails to get a good score. Oh the shame!Senior developers feel the pressure to not only ace these tests, but also get a grand score as they are supposed to be experts in their role. Failing in the coding assessment might put their reputation at stake, and thus the reluctance.

Reason #4: They have time constraints

Senior engineers often have busy schedules. That's why they feel that taking time out for an assessment that takes hours to complete and which isn’t a guarantee of a job offer, could hinder their productivity and cause delays during their work hours.

Reason #5: They feel assessments are biased

Senior engineers often feel that tech assessments are biased. Good developers are excellent problem solvers, and that is an ability that is hard to detect in a hour-long test. Most assessments can be solved easily with online guides and answers. It becomes easy for senior hires to fool a badly designed test. This leads them to believing that tech assessments overall are inaccurate and biased.

Also, read: Tips to Remove Unintended Bias in the Assessment Process

How to Get Senior Engineers to Take Coding Assessment Tests

Now you know the real reason why senior engineers are unwilling to take coding assessments. The conundrum now is – as a company, how do you build a tech assessment process that serves your needs, as well as appeals to senior hires.

It goes without saying that this step needs some compromises on both fronts. And, instead of hoping for a singular solution, it would be better to think of customized approaches that fit in with your specific business needs.

However, there are some surefire ways to help senior hires break their mental barriers about tech assessments. Let’s look at them below.

How Tech Recruiters Can Help Senior Engineers Take Coding Assessment Tests

How Tech Recruiters Can Help Senior Engineers Take Coding Assessment Tests

Addressing concerns and misconceptions

There might be senior engineers who believe coding assessments can only assess the developer’s weaknesses. If developers have similar concerns, show them how coding assessments at your organization work. Understand their concerns and explain to them how taking this assessment test will help in:

Accurately assessing their knowledge
Add value to the entire tech hiring process

For example, recruiters and hiring managers who use HackerEarth Assessments in their workflow use real-life job simulations to create take-home assessments that more accurately reflect a developer’s strengths. This helps in making the hiring process more realistic and sets the right expectations for both the developer and the hiring team.

This is how HackerEarth Assessments work

This is how HackerEarth Assessments work

Tailoring coding assessments for senior engineers

Senior engineers want more personalized and targeted coding assessments. They don’t want to take assessments with basic programming questions relevant to junior roles.So, create advanced coding assessments that align with the job role you’re hiring them for—matching their level of expertise.To do this, look at advanced coding questions that you can use in the assessments. But that’s where most recruiters and hiring managers fail.A simple way to do this is to:

First, ask your existing senior engineers about the kind of questions they’d want to see in the assessment
Then use coding assessment platforms like HackerEarth Assessments to create a customized assessment.

Also, watch: How to Add Programming Questions to HackerEarth Assessments?

Will you create tech assessments that engineers absolutely love? Maybe not.

But that’s not entirely a bad thing. Let’s start with accepting that no one likes taking tests and when your livelihood depends on it, these tests can easily become a source of anxiety and stress.So, let’s not worry about creating tests that engineers will fall in love with. Let’s look at creating assessments that are accurate and which a senior developer will trust enough to not ghost you midway during the hiring cycle.Sidenote: If you are looking to create a personalized and highly-specific coding assessment for senior engineers based on the job role you’re hiring for, try HackerEarth Assessments. Not to brag, but we’ve been doing this for 10+ years.

Hiring Tools

8 Ways to Streamline your HR Operation with Conversational AI

Artificial intelligence is becoming an indelible part of modern business in every industry and every niche. Business leaders in all sectors nowadays have a golden opportunity to leverage conversational AI recruitment to empower all of their departments to achieve better results–HR included.

With conversational AI making strides and breakthroughs at every corner, it’s no wonder that businesses of all sizes are nowadays integrating AI tools into their processes. When it comes to HR, this can be a game-changer for the way you source and hire talent, onboard employees, and run your daily HR operations.

What Is Conversational AI?

Conversational AI is a type of artificial intelligence that can mimic human conversations and behaviors. While conversational AI has been around for years by now, in the last few years it has experienced exponential growth in popularity due to advanced tools like ChatGPT hitting the global market.

Role of Conversational AI in Improving Workflow in HR Department

Let’s take a look at the role conversational AI holds in your HR department.

How conversational AI is shaping HR department?

Automated and streamlined candidate screening

First things first, it should go without saying that conversational AI recruiting has an important role to play in modern recruitment. From sourcing and reaching out to potential candidates, all the way to candidate screening, post-interview analysis, and even decision-making– AI has something valuable to bring to the table.

Benefit of conversational AI in candidate screening

Since conversational AI is inherently unbiased, it can eliminate subconscious biases from the screening and recruitment processes in general. But as we all know, this type of AI is also great for generating ideas and creative solutions.

In addition to standard candidate screening, you might also want to use AI to generate fun icebreaker questions for the interview process, and every follow-up conversation with each candidate as well.

By scrubbing through their application and other available data from different sources, the AI can recommend unique icebreaker questions that will engage a particular candidate and make them feel more at ease.

Creating more interactive onboarding programs

Adopting the AI mindset can improve the business operations in the most surprising ways. There are several important perks that AI brings to the table that HR experts can use to create better onboarding experiences: speed, inclusivity, and self-service.

To put this into perspective, conversational AI can be a great tool for quickly generating the foundational pillars of your onboarding strategy. With the right set of parameters and guidelines, the AI can quickly generate the basis for what your HR experts will turn into a comprehensive onboarding process.

AI is also useful for eliminating bias in the onboarding process. Proper application can help members of the LGBTQIA+ community feel more included, respected, and welcomed in their new work environments.

However, one of the best parts is that you can use conversational and generative AI tools to create a self-service onboarding database. This platform will serve to provide new hires with all the info they need to hit the ground running.

How conversational AI helps improves the onboarding process

Building an employee self-service platform

Speaking of a self-service platform, this is a great opportunity for business leaders to enhance productivity and efficiency across their organizations. Aside from building an AI-driven resource platform for onboarding and new hires in general, it’s a good idea to build a general company self-service platform for all teams.

Veteran employees and new hires alike need a resource center where they can get answers to their questions and source the materials they need to do their jobs. With AI, they can do this without disrupting the workflow of others or taking time away from their colleagues and higher-ups.

This is where conversational AI and chatbot platforms come in.

Advantage of ChatGPT over traditional search engine

One of the biggest advantages ChatGPT has over traditional search engines is, for example, the ability to provide useful information and answers to questions with related context. Not only can they search for the right information but they can respond to employee queries with real-world examples, explanations, and interpretations.

While Google typically only provides search results, generative AI provides information and insights. Armed with your internal database, a conversational chatbot can provide these types of insights to your employees.

Providing personalized employee training

Generally speaking, personalization and providing personalized experiences is one of the biggest challenges that companies face nowadays when it comes to customer acquisition and retention. Whether you’re working with an in-house team or partnering with a customer acquisition agency, the same goes for the employee-facing strategies and processes in your organization. That said, the same goes for the employee-facing strategies and processes in your organization.

Personalizing HR processes is a difficult challenge because of the sheer number of processes in question, but again, generative and conversational AI can lend a helping hand. When it comes to personalizing training, ongoing development, and even mentorships, conversational AI for HR professionals and project managers can be an instrumental tool.

HR professionals can take on the task of structuring and personalizing employee training by first devising training programs with the help of AI. They can then use AI to complement direct mentorship in the workplace and offload some of the work from the mentors’ shoulders.

Both mentors and HR experts alike have an opportunity to leverage AI to personalize their training approach for every employee. This means using AI for ideation, yes, but it also means using it to compile and make sense of employee data and behaviors to adapt and personalize their strategies.

Also, read: Next in Tech: AI, Assessments, and The Great Over-Correction

Better data analysis and insights

If there is one thing that conversational AI is good at, it’s collectively delivering data, insights, and reports quickly. The ability to collect, collate, and present data efficiently and effectively can save businesses time and money, and empower HR professionals to make better, data-driven decisions for the company.

Modern businesses have a great opportunity to leverage HR data analytics to generate company-wide insights fast. This is done through surveys, pulse surveys, engagement metrics, and behavioral data obtained through employee interactions with various tools and software.

This is really where modern AI tools shine in comparison to previous generations of AI.

How does conversational AI help in data presentation

With visualization software, the AI can quickly present the data as manageable charts and infographics that illustrate key points and insights and even suggest the next steps.

Modern conversational AI can advise and use various inputs (prompts and datasets) to quickly ideate solutions and strategic decisions.

Ensuring better compliance in the organization

When it comes to compliance and policymaking in your organization, conversational AI can help you with compliance and creating policies that adhere to local laws and regulations. From tech-driven DE&I to defining workplace safety, culture, and ensuring compliance with local labor laws, conversational AI can help HR generate the right documentation.

But of course, it’s not just about creating policies, it’s also about implementing and integrating them into the workplace. Employees need to internalize these policies and adopt them to ensure not only the safety of the brand as a whole but also their success in your organization.

By providing accurate and up-to-date information, AI systems can guide employees through various policies, address compliance-related questions, and flag potential issues. The system can send alerts directly to the HR department if some policies require attention or if any of the employees are having trouble adopting them.

HR can then send subsequent short-form surveys to employees to gather additional feedback and see if the AI-suggested changes have made a difference.

Automated leave and attendance management

It should go without saying that AI is good for process automation in any HR department, even if it simply means automating some menial and repetitive tasks to free up individual bandwidth.

Attendance management with conversational AI

AI-driven attendance management allows employees to use chatbots to submit leave requests, check leave balances, and get notifications or answers to questions before submitting their requests. All of this reduces paperwork and administrative overhead for the HR staff.

Most importantly, simply automating this one aspect of people management allows HR professionals to tend to complex tasks and focus on strategic work for the company. But on the strategic level, you can use AI not only to automate this process but to plan for it as well.

What this means is that AI-driven software can help HR professionals plan their human resources well in advance, based on demand forecasts, projected staff shortages, and more.

Automated performance management and analysis

Last but not least, conversational and general AI can automate performance management both in-house and remotely. While you’re using performance monitoring software to capture employee data in the workplace, you can then use AI to interpret that data.

AI can help you spot trends in the workplace, analyze the culture, gauge performance, etc. Visualized, interpreted, and put into context, this data will be invaluable for HR professionals to personalize their approach for every employee.

Experienced HR professionals know that performance management requires a personalized approach for each team member in your organization. Automated performance management makes it easier for them to analyze the unique needs of every employee to maximize their potential.

Also, read: AI in Recruitment: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Conclusion

In the fast-paced, competitive business world, companies big and small need to leverage the increasing accessibility of AI technology to empower their teams and transform their processes. Elevating your HR department through AI applications and conversational AI in particular should be one of your priorities in 2023, as well.

With these AI-driven solutions at your side, you can streamline various HR tasks, projects, and processes while minimizing financial and time waste. Be sure to start implementing conversational AI in your HR department, and you’ll be able to take your business forward as a whole.

Hackathons

Hackathons vs Conference: Which One Works The Best for Blockchain Industry?

One of the most widely used programming languages in the world, C++ is about 4 decades old. In comparison, Blockchain tech only arrived at the scene sometime in 2008, and is still considered comparatively ‘new’.

Developers and companies alike are still learning how to adopt Blockchain. One of the ways to disseminate information about the tech is via industry conferences which help Blockchain developers network with and learn from their peers.

But, is a Blockchain conference enough to fulfill this goal of interaction, adoption, and learning?

What is the best way to calculate the ROI from these conferences? What should the organizers do after the conference is completed?

Well the answer in our opinion is, conduct a hackathon to understand the uptake of information by developers who attended said conference, and help them utilize their newfound knowledge in practical ways to reach a defined ROI.

Let’s understand everything about hackathons vs conference, and how a Blockchain hackathon can be fruitful for your industry.

What are conferences?

Conferences are events where people with similar interests or professional backgrounds exchange ideas, share knowledge, network, and discuss industry-related topics.

Typically, conferences cover varied subjects such as technology, science, medicine, business, education, the arts, and more.

Usually, these events are organized at a large scale, attracting hundreds or even thousands of participants. They usually take place in a physical or virtual environment.

By attending these conferences, professionals can stay updated on the latest trends and innovations in their domain, find potential collaborators or partners, and broaden their network within a particular industry.

Talking about conferences, HackerEarth organized a tech conference in 2022 called Hire 1(0)1 for hiring managers and recruiters to help them build great tech teams. In this 2-day tech conference, HackerEarth invited keynote speakers who participated in the panel discussion to share their perspective.

Here’s what happens in a conference:

Presentations/Keynote Speeches: Speakers present their research, projects, or insights into the conference’s main theme or relevant subtopics. Presentations can be keynote speeches, panels, workshops, or poster sessions.
Workshops: Subject matter experts share insights on topics of their expertise—imparting industry-specific knowledge into the attendees.
Networking: Attendees can connect with professionals in their field.
Exhibitions: Many conferences include an exhibition area where companies, organizations, and research groups showcase their products, services, or projects related to the conference’s focus.

What are hackathons?

Hackathons are social coding events where developers, designers, and other tech enthusiasts come together to collaboratively work on projects, solve problems, and build innovation.

They focus on ideation, or even software development of a specific product in a niche industry. They are organized by companies who want to accomplish a specific goal such as creating brand awareness or hiring developers.

Some hackathons are standalone events, while others are part of larger conferences or tech festivals.

With the rise of virtual events and online collaboration tools, many hackathons have also been conducted in fully remote or hybrid environments. This allows participants from different geographical locations to join in the event.

Here’s what happens in hackathons vs conference:

Things that happen in hackathons vs conference

Building a prototype: Participants work in teams or individually to create a functioning prototype or a minimum viable product (MVP) within the given timeframe. The atmosphere is often fast-paced and intense, fostering creativity and collaboration.
Problem-solving projects: Participants are given a problem-solving statement. They need to address the problem through and provide the solution in the form of their project.
Learning and skill development: Participants learn about new technologies, programming languages, or tools. Here, they can experiment with cutting-edge technologies and apply their skills to real-world problems.
Networking: Participants can network with professionals from diverse backgrounds.
Project review: At the end of the hackathon, teams present their projects to a panel of judges. Judges evaluate the projects based on criteria such as innovation, functionality, creativity, and feasibility and announce the winning team.
Prizes and recognition: Many hackathons offer prizes, awards, or recognition to winning teams. These include cash prizes, access to resources, fundings or opportunities for further development.

Also, read: The Complete Guide to Organizing a Hackathon

How are conferences different from hackathons?

While conferences and hackathons appeal to be similar in nature, they are largely very different from each other in reality. Here’s what you should know about hackathons vs conference.

Conferences

Hackathons

At conferences, people can exchange ideas, build their professional network and deliver educational presentations and workshopsAt hackathons, along with networking and exchanging ideas, people can collaborate on projects and build product prototypes.The interaction at conferences is one-way—the speakers or panelists interact with the audience.The interaction at hackathons is two-way and one-on-one—participants can interact with the organizers and companies directly.Conferences give indirect ROI such as brand partnerships and new customers leading to increased revenue.Hackathons give direct ROI such as new hires, a product prototype or innovative ideas for a specific problem-solving statement.Conferences last for a few hours to days. For example, 2 days.Hackathons last for a few days to weeks and even months. For example, 3 months.

Why should Blockchain industries consider hackathons?

Blockchain companies who are *only* leveraging conferences to impart knowledge about the Blockchain industry need to rethink, and restructure their events. It’s time for them to consider hackathons vs conference to make their events more engaging, and ROI-driven.

Below are some reasons that will encourage you to host Blockchain hackathons (as part of your Blockchain conferences or as standalone events!).

Reasons to consider blockchain hackathons vs conference

Product adoption: Companies invite developers to use their product, and improve it for better using their innovative ideas. For instance, coming up with an innovative feature that can be added to the product or app.

User awareness: Companies organizing Blockchain hackathons can educate users about specific features of their Web3 app. They can talk about its benefits and the use cases as well.

Building ecosystem: By inviting developers to solve a problem, share innovative ideas or build technologies in the Blockchain industry, you are building a network of Blockchain developers.

Funding app ecosystem: Developers and founders developing Web3 technology can get funding for their ideas and efforts. For example, Web3athon 2023 offered $2,00,000 grants to developers building Web3 solutions.
Innovation: To solve a specific problem in the Blockchain industry, developers can build disruptive technology.

Also, watch: Decrypting Blockchain Innovation

Examples of Blockchain hackathons by HackerEarth with proven impact

Below we have shared virtual Blockchain hackathons hosted by different Blockchain companies to build an ecosystem of Blockchain developers, and even fund their ideas.

Buidl

This hackathon, hosted by Coinbase Cloud, Polygon and Coindesk aimed at sourcing incredible ideas for Web3 innovations, and even funding them.

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Impact: Received 5,821 registrations

Web3athon

Web3athon is an annual, multi-Blockchain, virtual hackathon hosted by Consensus with partners Alchemy University and HackerEarth to build better, scalable products that use Web3 to provide appropriate solutions. With this hackathon, 6 teams building five Blockchain ecosystems will take home $2,00.000 grants.

This hackathon, which concluded after 14 weeks, offered $80,000 in prizes, and had 17 sponsors aimed at bringing more developers to Web3 through partner grant programs.

Web3athon, a blockchain hackathon hosted by Consensus

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Impact: Received over 6,000 registrations; 378 ideas in stage 1 and 163 projects submitted in stage 2.

Also, read: 15 Hackathon Ideas for Blockchain

Why did these Blockchain hackathons work?

Blockchain hackathons vs conference work better because they are more interactive and encourage the attendees to participate in the event, which rarely happens in conferences. But there are more reasons too. Let’s discover them:

Reasons why blockchain hackathons work better than blockchain conferences

Innovation and creativity: Hackathons are a breeding ground for innovative and creative ideas. Blockchain technology is still relatively new, and hackathons allow participants to explore its potential applications in various industries and domains.
Focused environment to learn: Hackathons offer a focused environment where participants can work intensely on their projects for a limited period. This concentrated effort can lead to rapid progress and viable prototypes or proof-of-concept development.
Mentoring and collaborative learning: Participants at Blockchain hackathons often come from diverse backgrounds, including developers, designers, business professionals, and subject matter experts. We ensure that hackathons have AMA (Ask Me Anything) sessions with experts, and participants are encouraged to connect with each other on Discord and other forums so that they can learn from each other’s experiences and understand the technology via hands-on learning.
Community and exposure: Many hackathons provide mentorship and support from experienced professionals in the blockchain space. These mentors can guide participants, share insights, and help refine their ideas and implementations. This exposure allows participants to showcase their projects to potential investors, collaborators, or employers.
Potential for real-world implementation: Some hackathons are organized in collaboration with industry partners actively looking for innovative solutions to real-world problems. This increases the chances of successful projects getting further development and implementation opportunities.
Open source culture: The open-source nature of many blockchain projects allows participants to build upon existing frameworks and contribute their work back to the community. This collaborative approach encourages continuous improvement and accelerates development.

How HackerEarth can help you maximize ROI from Blockchain hackathons?

Rootstock and Web3athon used HackerEarth’s Hackathon platform to host their virtual hackathon. This helped them manage everything end-to-end—from creating a landing page for their hackathon to promoting each hackathon to HackerEarth’s community of 7.8 million developers across the globe.

Just like them, HackerEarth can help you organize your next Blockchain hackathon as part of your industry conference or as a standalone event. Our team of experts can help you with:

Creating a unique problem statement and theme for the event
Managing participation and promotion activities
Assessing and evaluating entries and submissions
Feedback, mentoring, and learning activities at the event
Creating unique IP (Intellectual Property) that can be used by your company to build actual products with real-world implications
Helping developers understand your Blockchain tech or product and encourage adoption

Ready to create your next Blockchain hackathon? Book a demo with HackerEarth.