Tech Assessment

This Is Recruiting: Is Tech Recruiting A Sales Or A Marketing Role?

CSG’s Senior Global TA Manager Kimberly Haught loves being part of the tech recruitment industry. On most days, that is. She says she didn’t really identify with the early days of her career when she was given a database similar to every recruiter, and had to do a certain ‘number’ of cold calls every single day.According to Kimberly, this process with its lack of focus and targeted brand messaging, and zero emphasis on candidate experience is NOT how one should be looking to hire the best tech talent out there.In the decade and half that Kimberly has been in the industry, she has managed to build a formidable personal brand around herself. She says she did this by thinking like a marketer, and not just as a recruiter.We caught up with Kimberly to understand how others in the business can do the same for themselves (you can check out the entire conversation here). An hour later, we were three stellar tips richer on how to build a personal brand in the TA world and how it can benefit the company you are associated with.Let us distill Kimberly’s wisdom for you in three easily digestible nuggets:

#1. Understand why you need a ‘personal brand’

There was a time when developers took up jobs only because it paid well or would add to their work ex. Today, Gen Z coders are more aware of a company’s ‘karma points’ than the ones before them. They are cognizant of a company’s values, and this is an important factor for them deciding to take up an offer.

As a tech recruiter, you are the face of the company you represent. However, you are also a person with a core set of values. Kimberly says it is important for TA specialists to talk about the values they personally espouse, and which; by extrapolation, also echo the values of the companies they work for.

This makes it easier for tech talent to make the decision. If they are talking to a recruiter with the same values as them, chances are the company they represent would be a similar match.It also makes it easier for recruiters to hire when they change companies. The tech talent you hired, or interacted with, earlier already knows you for your values, and for the work you do. Hence, when you reach out to them again for a new role, they are that much more likely to respond.

#2. Stop being a reactionary recruiter

Think of yourself as a talent magnet, says Kimberly. Loosely translated, become a person developers would love to be connected with. Don’t begin your engagement process only after an open role lands on your desk demanding to be filled. Understand the business inside out, research which geographies work better for hiring, speak with hiring managers to predict future needs.Think of this in marketing parlance. Every company tries hard to keep its ‘brand recall’ high, so that customers are attracted to its products of their own volition. As a recruiting specialist, you need to ensure that your ‘brand recall’ is always high. Interacting with your company’s marketing team to align on social and branding strategies is also a great idea, says Kim. She gives the example of the #TuesdayTips social posts she started creating in collaboration with CSG’s corporate marketing team, which has been hugely successful in helping developers notice her as a ‘friend’ of the community.

Wondering how to engage with developers? Here's what we learnt from our hackathons in 2020

#3. Own your seat at the table

If as a recruiter, all you are doing is hunting an elusive ‘candidate persona’ which your boss asked you to, then you need to change this process asap.Gone are the days when recruiters were handed an open role and asked to fill it ‘at the earliest’ without any understanding of the actual requirements. Kimberly advises that recruiters be in constant touch with the leadership and understand the actual skillset they are looking for - what’s good to have, what’s not, and how a person like that could fit in with the company’s growth plans.Recruiters are the ones with their ear to the ground, and who are most attuned to changing asks in the developer community. It’s important for them to be a part of the decision making process, and to lead the tech hiring journey from the forefront. Remember, top talent is ALWAYS in demand. So, the faster you begin to change age-old hiring practices at your workplace, the better your chances of roping in the best.

Check out the full episode here:

Tech Assessment

How Recruiting The Right Tech Talent Can Solve Tech Debt

Now and then we read about a new, all-important parameter of software development that has technical teams buzzing. However, before we get carried away with the latest buzzwords that the industry is enamored with, it might help to look back at the thought processes that got us to where we are today.One such concept has been floating around in the industry since 1992, following a talk by Ward Cunningham, who co-authored the Manifesto for Agile.It’s called ‘Technical Debt’.

What is 'Technical Debt'?

For multiple reasons, companies sometimes have to prioritize speed over matters such as code quality, documentation, and the aim of creating code that degrades gracefully. This compromise is precisely what leads to accruing ‘Technical Debt’.

In other words, it is the ‘cost’ that companies ‘borrow’, to ensure speedy delivery, with the understanding that the tech team needs to pay off the ‘interest’. In simpler words, the team needs to refactor the codebase even after delivery to ensure that coding standards are met, and the delivered product or service remains trouble-free.

David Cunningham perhaps put it best when he said, “Shipping first-time code is like going into debt. A little debt speeds development so long as it is paid back promptly with refactoring. The danger occurs when the debt is not repaid. Every minute spent on code that is not quite right for the programming task of the moment counts as interest on that debt.”

[ebook2]

Why does it occur?

Martin Fowler, the chief scientist at ThoughtWorks built upon David Cunningham’s idea and created the ‘Technical Debt Quadrant’ in 2009. Fowler’s quadrant takes into account two key factors that could help teams understand if they are taking on technical debt for the right reasons: Intent and Context.

Martin Fowler categorized technical debt based on intent and prudence.

While technical debt is indeed seen in every facet of the tech industry, the fact is that it is nearly ubiquitous in the startup ecosystem. The reason for this can be clearly understood when you consider what Fowler outlined in his quadrant.

Most startups live and breathe in the top-right quadrant, where the need to be first-to-market is extremely pressing - making technical debt as common as coffee in the startup ecosystem.

Another key reason why the technical debt exists is because of the differences in priorities and comprehension, between the technical and business areas of a company.

Bridging the gap between new technology and its business use cases has been important since before the first-ever tech product was built, and will continue to linger on, in the tech industry. The dilemma of ‘building a technically-deep solution’ versus a solution that ‘ticks all boxes about the business need’ will forever remain, especially given the limited timeframes within which tech products are sometimes developed.This dilemma leads to a de-prioritization of efforts that are aimed at reducing the technical debt of a product. After all, technical debt is hard to understand or visualize, so non-tech people often underestimate its consequences, and developers often put it on the backburner in the face of other pressing business tasks.

How does one identify and remedy technical debt?

Although technical debt is universal, identifying it requires a bit of reading between the lines. As per the Linux Foundation, the following are symptoms that can help identify the presence of technical debt:

The increase in time needed to introduce new features

If the codebase isn’t built with a clear architecture and modularity, it naturally becomes harder to introduce new features.

The necessity for intensive knowledge transfers

Codebases with high technical debt make for longer onboarding times because certain aspects of the code can only be understood by insider developers. It also makes it hard to hire new developers.

Security concerns

The harder it gets to identify and fix errors in the codebase, the easier it is to exploit it.

High maintenance costs

Code written in a hurried or undisciplined manner will always take longer and costs more to maintain.

Lack of alignment with the bigger picture

More often than not, difficulty to keep up with the development and release cycle is a result of technical debt.So now we know what technical debt is, and how it can be identified. We also understand that good tech teams have little technical debt.

So, what can be done to remedy technical debt?

Before we try to outline ways in which we can alleviate technical debt, we need to understand that it is absolutely necessary. Some releases simply can’t be delayed and some deadlines just can’t be negotiated with. So, incurring technical debt is necessary to stay afloat in many situations. However, that doesn’t mean that we should ignore the consequences. Tech teams must harvest a healthy attitude with technical debt, where they incur the debt in a prudent manner, while constantly making efforts to minimize tech debt.

Consistently refactoring the codebase

Although it is easy to ignore refactoring because it is an effort that causes no visible changes on the outside, it is actually crucial to lowering technical debt. A disciplined approach to refactoring leads to a codebase that is low-maintenance, highly readable as well as highly functional, all while bringing down technical debt.

Going open source

Development effort that is in line with a larger upstream open source project can reduce the technical debt massively in the long run. By minimizing the technical debt of a module and consistently making it a part of the open-source infrastructure, any redundancy is weeded out.

Diligent documentation

In most cases, the comments within a piece of code, or the documentation of the codebase is just as important as the code itself. Among many reasons, this is the case because it makes it easier to reduce the technical debt. Digital documentation that colleagues can share with one another makes it easier to look up any information that is pertinent to a project and remove defects efficiently.

Timely testing

A great way of reducing technical debt is to get rid of regression bugs. This can be done with the help of test automation tool that enables more rigorous testing of every unit, along with testing of the whole product or service.

Continuously improving the development strategy

High technical debt is almost always a red flag. It signals that the software development strategy was not designed as holistically as possible. This is why, the best way to keep technical debt low, is to modify the strategy as and when new roadblocks are overcome.

Hiring the right talent is the key

Given the necessity for and the consequences of high technical debt, as well the need for continuous retrospection of the codebase, it is clear that hiring the right talent is of supreme importance. The ‘secret’ behind building great tech products has never really been hidden. However, even though there were never any detractors from the notion that clean, well-documented code is what enables companies to scale to newer heights, there has always been inertia to do the ‘boring’ stuff.

All too often, tech teams get so carried away by the bigger picture, that they compromise on the very foundation of the software they are building.

So clearly, it isn’t just necessary to find talent that can create a working solution. It is also necessary to find talent that diligently creates a solution that is as sustainable as it is functional.

This is precisely why hiring the right talent can be an overarching strategy to help bring down the technical debt of a company. Teams could surely benefit from having a quality assessment tool that doesn’t just allow them to create tests that are in-depth but also enables them to recognize coding discipline and the flow of logic while solving a problem.

HackerEarth Assessments does just that. Thanks to its database of 12,000+ questions, detailed analytics, and powerful pair-programming capabilities, it has helped tech recruiters and hiring managers all over the world, with creating assessments that help match their teams to the exact skill set they need.

Tech Assessment

A hiring manager’s guide to hiring the right developer

We all know that hiring the right developeris a lot of hard work; you have to identify your requirements, find the right candidate, then integrate them into your team smoothly. Studies reveal that almost 24% percent of employers admit that they face considerable difficulties when searching for tech candidates. What’s worse, over 50% of businesses hire tech employees who don’t meet their top job requirements.

While this process isn’t a simple one, there is nothing like the energy that a talented and motivated employee can bring to your organization. The result is not only a tech project finished on time but an exciting new addition to your company that will make a lasting impact.

Read on to find out how intuitive tech managers attract and hire stellar developers.

1. Identify your requirements

Figure out the type of problems you are trying to solve, the challenges your candidate will face, and the outcomes you want to achieve. From there, let the nature of the work and the goals of the position determine the strengths, innate traits, and foundational knowledge that a candidate needs to possess. For example, if you are looking to hire the right software developer, the key skills to look for are mathematical aptitude, problem-solving, knowledge of programming languages such as Java and Python, accuracy and attention to detail, etc. While you may be an expert, it is always wise to bring more technical expertise and resources into recruiting. You can put your developer team in a room together and talk to them about how you can hire people like them. They can help you with the correct terminologies that are must-have and nice-to-have.

2. Get everyone on the same page

It is of utmost importance for the hiring manager, the development team, and the leadership team to be on the same page about who they are looking to hire, what will be the employee’s responsibilities, what primary technical skills are required, and how the person’s success in the role will be gauged. By having a clear understanding of expectations early on in the process, hiring managers can make sure candidates can perform the tasks efficiently which will be required as part of the role.

3.Know where to find developers

The goal in the sourcing stage is to attract as many talented developers as possible. Piquing interest is key and a simple and gender-fluid job description will definitely help you.

There are different resources that you can use to while hiring the right developers:

Developer communities: Tech communities are full of potential hires waiting to be discovered. Communities from where you can source talent for free include GitHub, Stack Overflow, and Hacker News.
Personal networking: Sometimes, things that we are looking for are right in front of us and we hardly notice them. Take for example your company’s Linkedin profile. You can find some great candidates just by looking at it closely. Also, make use of your personal and professional contacts and resources. Attend local meetups in your area for entrepreneurs in technology and you will find that there are many people who might just be looking for this kind of position.
Social media: Did you know that 53% of young online adults aged 18–29 use Instagram actively? Social media is a powerhouse of talent if used the right way.
Virtual job fairs: This is not exactly a cost-free way of sourcing talent but it is comparatively cheaper (average of $8,000 for one virtual event) than the conventional way of recruitment.
Job boards: Authentic Jobs, Mashable Job Board, Smashing Magazine Jobs, and StackOverflow Careers 2.0 are our top picks.

Also read: 5 Tips to source tech talent without your local staffing agency’s help

4. Start with a conversation and only then jump to take-home coding tests

Pre-employment or take-home coding tests are an absolute necessity for evaluating the skills of a developer. However, tossing them at a busy developer in the early stages will drive them away. Hence, before you give them a test of any sort, start with a face-to-face or telephonic discussion about prior work experience and technical projects that they have worked on. This allows both the employer and employee to assess the chemistry and fit, learn from each other, and decide if moving forward with a coding test or additional interviews makes sense.

5. Listen, learn, and collaborate during the interview

Each employer should be asking open-ended, thought-provoking questions to begin a dialogue with the interviewee. Some examples include:

Tell me something about a project that you are working on: By asking this question, you should be able to get the developer talking in a comfort area. If candidates are strategic in their answers, they will pick an area that’s aligned to the role they are interviewing for. Look for a candidate’s ability to tell a story and whether they can explain why they are working on it. This question acts like an ice-breaker that can lead to several other questions and discussion areas that will help you understand who is sitting in front of you.
Where are you in your job search?: In addition to being a good ice-breaker, asking this question will also give you an idea of how far the candidate is in the job exploration and research process. Ultimately, you’re looking to understand what motivates them in the workplace, so you can assess if there is a likely fit between your technology work and their work style and aspirations.

You can also discuss the work style and practices of the potential candidate. If your candidate is someone who works remotely, you should ask questions about how they’ve been successfully working in a remote environment and the challenges they faced while collaborating with centralized teams. It is important to remember that while some developers like to mentor, others need mentoring and some prefer working alone. These questions are designed to help you evaluate whether the candidate is the right fit, whether he/she will be able to enhance the working style of the team they may join, and what may be the areas of change.

6. Hire the most promising candidate

Yay! You have finally found a great developer you’d like to hire. However, before you roll the offer letter, go with a trial first. You could give them a small project that’s complicated enough to test their problem-solving and role-specific skills and simple enough to be finished in a short time without a considerable cost. Hire the developer only if the code is right, is delivered on time, and you are satisfied with the communication and way of working. Last but not least, define expectations straight from the beginning.

There you have it; our 6-step guide to hiring the right developer. Any tips you’d like to share from your personal experience in hiring a dev? We would love to entertain a conversation. Drop a short excerpt from your experience in the comments below.

Want to create accurate skill-based assessments and hire the best developers? We can help you. Write to us at support@hackerearth.com and we will get back to you shortly.

Tech Assessment

Keeping Culture Alive: What Recruiters Can Do While Hiring Remotely

Up till the beginning of this year, if anyone asked about the best restaurants in town we’d redirect them to the team handling reimbursements. You see, at HackerEarth we match new employees with a buddy, and the buddy gets a ‘buddy bonus’ for taking their fellow Hackster out on their first day of work. Coffee and bonding, right? The bills told us which restaurant in town was the flavor of the month, and which was past-a it’s prime cut.

That stopped in March. With COVID came a new crisis - the inability to showcase our company culture the way we were used to. No more in-person interviews. No more candidates walking around our office and soaking in the ‘vibe’ that we have spent years perfecting.

The Vibe. How we miss thee!

The ping-pong table with its loud laughter. The shared lunches and team hangouts. The wall with HackerEarth’s values plastered in big bold letters.A company’s culture is way more than games and funny graffiti. However, these elements of our everyday work life speak way more about us than a carefully crafted presentation could. One of the many facts about HackerEarth which continues to impress me is seeing how the leadership sends heartfelt mails with shoutouts to team members for every big achievement. Our Slack channel is full of kudos and appreciation. These are the things that don’t make it to any company presentation but make our 9-5 worth the grind.

Leaves and perks can be quantified, but how do you document intangibles that form the core of who you are as a brand, and a workplace?

Bringing us back to the vibe, and how it translates to our new normal.

Many think that company culture takes effect only when an employee joins work. I disagree, and so does this survey from the Addison group which says that 70% of candidates leave midway during the hiring process because it’s too slow, or the recruiter wasn’t easy to communicate with.

Culture begins with the first ‘Hello’ (such Jerry Maguire feels!), and the onus is on us recruiters to be the torchbearers for our brands. Given that everyone is dealing with so much during this pandemic, it’s an added responsibility for recruiters to ensure that every new member, and their butterflies, feel included and welcomed from the get-go.

Included. Welcomed. Appreciated.

When the talent acquisition team at HackerEarth sat down to discuss what changes we needed to bring into our processes amid this pandemic, we narrowed it down to these three feelings. If every new hire felt this way on their first day, we would know we had done our jobs well.

Remote hacking the Vibe.

Once we had the goals set out, we sat down to hack out a plan. Coffees are banned currently, but communication isn’t. The first step was ensuring every communication sent to a prospect underlined what the values propositions we needed to highlight.

Step 1: Re-craft the EVP to answer the most important questions candidates have in this new normal

In 2016, PathMotion - a recruitment tech company - set out to find out what candidates were asking of employers via its platforms. Four years; 20,116 conversations, and 2.9 million candidate questions later, they figured that since 2016 (source):

The number of candidates viewing culture-related content has increased by three times
Readership for diversity-related content has increased by four times
Viewership for content related to work-life balance has tripled

EVP, or the Employee Value Proposition, is an important tool in a recruiter’s arsenal. We rejigged ours to put more emphasis on work-life balance, diversity, and company culture. EVP, or the Employee Value Proposition, is an important tool in a recruiter’s arsenal. We rejigged ours to put more emphasis on work-life balance, diversity, and company culture. Candidates also pay attention to policies for personal devices at work and other practical safeguards that shape their everyday remote experience. When you are working remotely, you probably do not care as much about the number of annual leaves as you do about being expected to be available 24*7, or slog extra on weekends because what else are you going to do in a lockdown?

Our EVP makes it very clear that we value our employees’ time, and are cognizant of the added pressure that many are living under. Our mental health and insurance policies, wellness leaves, structured working hours form an important part of the EVP now - probably even more than before.

At the same time, we did not want to come across as a company that does not know how to have fun. We added the video from our GPTW win to the presentation to give prospects a feel of what our normal day-to-day looks like. The Friday games and ‘happy hours’ got a mention. As did the upskilling and personal growth initiatives taken up by the HR team.

Step 2: Regular communication that makes employees feel included

One of the best feelings in the world is to feel wanted and valued. Funny thing, it doesn’t take much to make someone feel so.Our plan to keep a new hire engaged and included begins the moment they accept an offer. The first ‘welcome’ email that they get is a .gif of the HR team. We don’t do formal at HackerEarth, and this email really sets the tone for our future communications.

HR Team - HackerEarth - Company Culture

In the days that follow, we send out regular emails with the subject line ‘Did You Know’, each comprising a factoid about the company or the team that the employee will be working with. When there is a long gap between the candidate accepting the offer and their official first day, mails like this can go a long way in making them feel like they belong.If the said employee has any direct reports, we make sure to schedule meetings so that the team can get to know each other. Breaking the ice is tricky any day and more so over a virtual call, hence why we like to get any awkwardness out of the way sooner than later. We also like to invite new employees to team huddles and other team activities. All with consent, of course.[ebook1]Waiting for the ‘first day’ to do all this can make the remote onboarding process a tad overwhelming for candidates. Instead, we choose to schedule these at regular intervals over the garden leave period. I think it also helps them absorb their work expectations better so that they come in to work prepped and ready to hit the ground running.

Step 3: Help the employee through the onboarding and acclimatizing process

In recent months I have seen firsthand how the time taken for hand-off from recruiting to onboarding has increased. Since the recruiter or TA is the first point of contact for candidates, they are comfortable coming back to us with issues they face during their ‘settling-in’ phase.In a non-COVID world, I might have redirected them to the onboarding team for said issues. It’s a possibility even today, but one that I prefer not to indulge in. Reports show that 25% of new hires leave a job within the first 90 days. But the same reports also say that when they go through a structured onboarding process, 58% of new hires are likely to stay in the same job for 3 years or more.None of us wants to make remote onboarding a game of chess for our new hires. So, instead, we choose to go that extra step and resolve employee queries on our own, until they get a hang of how things work. Goes back to what I said earlier about making them feel included and welcome.

Final Thoughts.

If you too have been wondering how you can call attention to the best bits of your company’s culture when hiring, I hope the above tips will help you.Many say that COVID will end up killing the need for company culture. The argument is that when everyone’s working remotely, culture doesn’t come into play. That is simply untrue.Culture isn’t defined by the number of hours you spend at an office desk or limited to the number of WFHs an employee can take. Just like the ping-pong table and coffee-with-a-buddy, flexi-working hours and WFH bonuses are add ons. Culture has, and always will manifest in what you do and how you do it when you are together as a team, and as a brand. In the way you communicate and collaborate, or listen to every voice at the table. In how you enable teammates who are aching to break the monotony and come back to the office while honoring the wishes of those who think they are safer home. Culture has always been about creating a judgment-less, supportive work environment where ideas can find appreciation. Remote work is not going to kill that even if it tried.

Viva la vibe!

Tech Assessment

Top 10 cities to hire developers

According to StackOverflow, the demand for software developers still outpaces the supply. Research reveals that in the US alone, tech talent shortage is predicted to cost the country USD 435.7 billion.

Unfortunately, businesses in major tech countries such as the US and the UK have long been suffering because of the rapid growth of tech industries and the shortage of talented developers. Hence, several firms across the globe have started to look beyond their local talent pool and hire software developers online or offshore.

Between hiring freelancers online and dedicated development teams offshore, offshoring has long been a popular choice for tech firms. According to Deloitte’s 2016 Global Outsourcing Survey, 59% of the respondents outsource talent because of the affordability factor. Other reasons stated in the survey were:

It Outsourcing services enables a business to focus on its core functions
Outsourcing solves capacity issues
Outsourcing improves the quality of services, and more

In 2016, Tholons released a report—Top 100 Outsourcing Destinations. The list featured popular cities from across the globe where you can find and hire developers.

Most cities in the top 10 were from India. Hence, to give a wider representation of all the popular outsourcing regions, we listed down one city per country according to rank.

With that said, here are the top 10 cities across the globe where you can find and hire developers.

Top 10 cities to hire developers

1. Bangalore, India

Tholons 2016 Top 100 Outsourcing Destinations ranked Bangalore, India as the number one destination to hire software developers/programmers. The city is popularly known for its low-cost developer rates.

According to PayScale, an average software engineer in Bangalore gets paid INR 799.50 per hour. That’s USD 11 per hour, which is quite affordable for businesses, especially early-stage startups.

Bangalore boasts of its large pool of software engineers. In fact, it’s estimated that around 175,000 developers out of 500,000 software engineers in India can be found in Bangalore.

Because of these factors as well as the city’s booming IT industry, global startups and big tech companies flock to Bangalore to set up their businesses or hire developers offshore.

2. Manila, Philippines

Just like Bangalore, Manila is a good place to look for developers, with competitive rates. The low salary rates are due to the low cost of living in the country.

Second to Bangalore, Manila is a popular destination to hire developers. Even though Manila is popularly known as the BPO capital of the world, it also has a thriving IT outsourcing industry.

One of Manila’s main advantages is its English-fluent developers. In fact, 70% of Filipinos are fluent in English, according to the Philippine Board of Investments.

It’s also officially the country’s second language. Hence, many global companies choose to work with Filipino developers owing to the ease of communication in terms of language and culture.

3. Krakow, Poland

Krakow’s rapid growth in producing tech professionals stems from its high number of universities and employment opportunities in the country.

According to The Fight for the Future: How People Defeated Hollywood and Saved the Internet—For Now by Edward Lee, the city has a total estimate of 170,000 students, making it an ideal destination for hiring young developers.

In addition, the 2019 A.T. Kearney Global Services Location Index ranked Poland as one of the best outsourcing locations because of the country’s availability of tech talent and financial attractiveness.

Also, it is one of the nearest locations for European businesses to hire software developers from. Krakow is around 1.5 kilometers away from the UK, making it one of the most accessible and easiest places for remote cooperation for UK firms.

Because of the city’s quality and quantity of tech talent, Krakow has become one of the best IT outsourcing cities in the world.

4. Dublin, Ireland

In addition to Krakow, Dublin has risen to become one of the best cities to hire developers in Eastern Europe.

Besides the affordable developer rates, Dublin takes pride in its repository of tech talent. According to Stack Overflow, out of all the cities in the British Isles, Dublin has the highest number of programmers, totaling more than 60,000 people. The most dominant programming languages in the city are Java, Python, and Ruby.

Major tech brands such as Amazon Web Services, HubSpot, and MongoDB have also set up businesses in Dublin due to the growing tech industry and tech talent pool in the city.

5. San Jose, Costa Rica

The capital city of Costa Rica has emerged to become an attractive destination to hire remote developers, especially for US tech firms.

One of the reasons for its popularity is its central time zone. When offshoring, most countries have an overlapping time of at least 4 business hours. In Costa Rica, the country is 2 hours ahead in the West Coast and 1 hour behind in the East Coast.

This means that remote teams can almost have a full working day of overlapping times. This allows for a longer and smoother real-time collaboration between businesses and remote teams.

Additionally, the country boasts of a highly educated workforce. According to The Global Competitiveness Report of 2017, Costa Rica was ranked as a leader in quality education in Latin America.

Businesses that are looking to hire tech talent in San Jose can be assured of developers who are experts in their fields and have good English speaking skills.

These factors have made San José a global hub for tech talents.

6. Shanghai, China

Over the past two decades, China’s IT industry has significantly grown and has become an innovative leader in the global IT industry. Among its cities, Shanghai has evolved to become one of the country’s biggest and most popular tech hubs.

Despite the high-level skills of Chinese developers, they are not as expensive. In an article by Nova Software, President of BearingPoint Bryan Huang said that an engineer with a $4,000 per month salary in the US would cost an equivalent of $500 in Shanghai.

The country’s huge population, inexpensive rates, and its booming tech industry have made it an ideal destination for global tech companies for hiring top tech talent.

7. Prague, Czech Republic

Among the cities in Central Europe, Prague has become a center for finding and hiring software developers/programmers, researchers, bookkeepers, and candidates for various other white-collar jobs.

Tech giants such as Google, IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle have invested and outsourced in the country because of its promising tech talent. In fact, according to the World Population Review, businesses across Europe come to the city to establish their headquarters, which now accounts for 25% of the country’s GDP.

Apart from its workforce and location, another advantage of looking for a developer in Central Europe is the region’s knowledge in a variety of languages.

Developers can effectively communicate in English, German, French, and other local languages. Overall, convenience in location, communication, and culture make Prague a good destination to hire tech talent.

8. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Even though Malaysia has a smaller pool of tech talent, businesses flock to the country’s capital to hire offshore dedicated developers because of its political and financial stability and multilingual workforce.

In fact, in 2015, Malaysia was ranked 4th in financial market development globally by the World Economic Forum.In addition, the Government of Malaysia has a number of long-term initiatives for IT products and services such as building fast broadband infrastructure and attracting companies to look at the country as a global information and communications technology (ICT) industry.

According to Electrica Technology, the high level of internet penetration and digital adoption in the country make it an attractive market for Australian FinTech solutions.

Malaysia couldn’t compete with the nearby countries in terms of BPO, so they ventured into offering value-added services such as skills in IT.

9. Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

Ho Chi Minh has recently emerged as an attractive destination to find and hire developers because of its low-cost rates but quality output.

In addition to attracting western businesses, Vietnam has also piqued the interest of Japanese businesses. In an Asian Review article, one of the things that draws Japanese businesses to the country is that more than 100,000 Vietnamese are learning the Japanese language.

Also, the government supports the country’s IT sector and provides legal and financial incentive packages, making it an ideal destination for global businesses.

10. Johannesburg, South Africa

The Top 100 Outsourcing Destinations report identified three cities from South Africa. Johannesburg ranked at 20, which was one notch above its 2015 ranking.

Johannesburg performed better in ranking than other South African cities due to its quality outsourcing services in areas of IT, CRM, KPO, finance, among others. The region’s cost-competitiveness, neutral accent, and cultural alignment have made it an inviting destination for businesses, especially small startups.

In 2030, the country’s outsourcing outlook is expected to account for 4% of global revenues, according to a report by Deloitte.

When hiring developers, keep this in mind…

When choosing where to hire a software developer from, keep in mind that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Each destination has its own strengths and weaknesses in services, rates, and cultural and political compatibility.

Fortunately, there are thousands of offshore providers that cater to tech firms and startups across the globe. Partnering and working with an offshore provider allows businesses to source the right talent and to securely work with their offshore team.

If you’re looking for tech talent, you can find and hire developers at Cloud Employee, HackerEarth, People Per Hour, Upwork, among others.

Tech Assessment

Master Recruiting Metrics ft. The Crown & HackerEarth

Welcome to the second episode of #NetflixandHire where we learn some great ways on how you can get your recruiting metrics right!

For this, we’ve chosen a TV show we LOVE and we can all learn from—The Crown.

Why? Because Queen Elizabeth sums it right—“In an increasingly complex world, we all need certainty.”

P.S. If you haven’t already gone through our previous episode, here you go! – Episode 1: How to drive inclusive hiring in tech ft. Orange Is the New Black

Source: Pop Culture Times

The show delivers an important message on how, as a leader, you are responsible not only for the well-being of yourself but everyone else around you, and that it never hurts to be informed. Through the seasons, you realize that as a constitutional monarch, Queen Elizabeth, though not having any political power, is always in a position to advise the Government. You can also see how she strives to be informed—by hiring a private tutor and staying on top of official documents—just so she can keep things in check.

Now, being a tech recruiter is no less than being a monarch. You’re tasked with connecting with the right developers, bringing in the right talent, and making sure your kingdom, (ahem) organization, flourishes. But can you be so sure of doing these things without the right metrics? We think not! In fact, the Recruitment Operations benchmark report by Yello vouches for the same.

The key takeaway—Recruitment operations is all about streamlining hiring processes, cutting costs, and driving greater efficiency.

Source: Yello

Now, let’s look at how you can measure and tackle each of the above metrics, ‘The Crown’ style:

1) Reducing your time-to-hire

“There is one thing I’ve learned in 52 years of public service is that there is no problem so complex, nor crisis so grave that it cannot be satisfactorily resolved within 20 minutes.” —Winston Churchill

Source: Pinterest

Did you know that 52% of the recruiters take more than 3 hours to actually make a hire! Hence time-to-hire is the first recruiting metric that we will cover.

Honestly, if Churchill could solve political emergencies in a matter of minutes, we could surely solve the time-to-hire problem with a little help.

The 2 biggest pitfalls that recruiters face when it comes to closing positions are:

Screening candidates
Scheduling interviews

How can you screen developers and schedule interviews better?

Use personality tests

From Minna’s 16 developer profiles to Hackernoon’s 9, developers exhibit a myriad of profiles. Different projects need different behaviors and value profiles apart from skills. Hence, it’s important to get to know prospective employees and their work ethic to understand if they would be the right fit for your organization.Here are some questions from Alistair Doulin’s programmer personality test that you could use.

Use skill-based assessments

Using skill-based assessments to test technical competencies is a great way of making sure that you only have the right candidates in the interview stage. It gives both recruiters and hiring managers enough bandwidth to concentrate better on testing candidates in the later stages of the interview. It is no wonder that skill-assessments can bring down your time-to-hire by 50%.

Create a take-home coding test for free

Use live video interviews

An easy and time-tested method for scheduling interviews better is to use a live video interview tool. Some cool benefits of using such a tool:

Scheduling interviews gets a lot simpler when assessing remote developers.
You can watch candidates as they code and evaluate them for job readiness.
With access to interview history, you always have data on hand to make the right hiring decision.

Did you know that by adding a live video interview tool in your hiring process, you can bring down your average time to hire to 10 days!

2) Decreasing your cost-per-hire

Season 3 sees Prince Charles’s investiture as the Prince of Wales and the demands of the royal family for the deployment of 15,000 troops, 21 gun salutes, and a battery of Royal Field Artillery among other things. However, the then Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, understands that a penny saved is a penny earned and he advises Charles to “Go and study there and address the country in Native Welsh” to make a more meaningful impact on the people of Wales.

Source: The Digital Weekly

It’s time we took a leaf out of Wilson’s book and saved some money by cutting down unnecessary hiring costs.

How can you reduce your hiring cost?

Did you know that recruiters spend 35% of their annual recruiting budget on external agencies to hire 10 technologists! No wonder this recruiting metric is really important to recruiters. Here are some ways on how you can reduce your hiring costs by minimizing your dependency on external agencies:

Leverage social media to build a developer brand

Prospective employees would like to know all the cool things that your company has been up to and see the kind of work culture in store for them. Setting up live Q&A sessions, building a talent pipeline using your company’s Linkedin profile and attracting Gen Z developers through Instagram, Snapchat and Pinterest could be some ways in which you can gauge their interest.

Attend local meetups

Look for local developer meetups and conferences. You can find a lot of free events in your locality on Meetup. Shortlist for events that align with your recruiting goals. You could make some connections a couple of days before the event so you know whom to spend time with on the day of the event.

Make your tech team your brand advocate

Your tech team is first-hand proof of what you stand for as a developer brand. Hence, it is very important that your developers are your strongest advocates. Try incorporating a referral program and encourage developers to share their experiences working with you to ensure a greater recall.

3) Boosting your retention rate

“Keep one eye on the future. The distant future” – King George VI

The series portrays King George VI as the monarch who rose to the occasion at the expense of his physical and mental health. You can clearly see his preparedness when he urges Churchill to let Elizabeth undertake the commonwealth tour to ease her into her future role as Queen in order to keep the monarchy standing in the case of his demise.

Source: Business Insider

It’s time we channeled our inner King George and thought about the future of our workforce. Is all that sweat and blood that went into recruiting your dream tech team going to waste? This brings us to our 3rd recruiting metric: retention. Taking some steps to retain your tech team for the long run is the only way forward.

How to increase retention in your tech team?

We had recently written this detailed article on how to ensure your tech talent pool is poaching proof. Here’s the gist:

Provide autonomy and purpose to your developers
Develop a community internally
Provide perks and privileges your developers can’t say no to
Have an open discussion with your employees in the incentive process
Provide creative freedom and growth opportunities

There you have it—our royal advice on how to get your tech recruiting metrics right this year. Let us know if any of these have solutions have helped better your hiring process in the comments below. See you soon in the next episode! Until then, #NetflixandHire 😎

Authors

Meet our Authors

Get to know the experts behind our content. From industry leaders to tech enthusiasts, our authors share valuable insights, trends, and expertise to keep you informed and inspired.

Ruehie Jaiya Karri

Kumari Trishya

Hiring Strategies

7 Tech Recruiting Trends To Watch Out For In 2024

The last couple of years transformed how the world works and the tech industry is no exception. Remote work, a candidate-driven market, and automation are some of the tech recruiting trends born out of the pandemic.

While accepting the new reality and adapting to it is the first step, keeping up with continuously changing hiring trends in technology is the bigger challenge right now.

What does 2024 hold for recruiters across the globe? What hiring practices would work best in this post-pandemic world? How do you stay on top of the changes in this industry?

The answers to these questions will paint a clearer picture of how to set up for success while recruiting tech talent this year.

7 tech recruiting trends for 2024

6 Tech Recruiting Trends To Watch Out For In 2022

Recruiters, we’ve got you covered. Here are the tech recruiting trends that will change the way you build tech teams in 2024.

Trend #1—Leverage data-driven recruiting

Data-driven recruiting strategies are the answer to effective talent sourcing and a streamlined hiring process.

Talent acquisition leaders need to use real-time analytics like pipeline growth metrics, offer acceptance rates, quality and cost of new hires, and candidate feedback scores to reduce manual work, improve processes, and hire the best talent.

The key to capitalizing on talent market trends in 2024 is data. It enables you to analyze what’s working and what needs refinement, leaving room for experimentation.

Trend #2—Have impactful employer branding

98% of recruiters believe promoting company culture helps sourcing efforts as seen in our 2021 State Of Developer Recruitment report.

Having a strong employer brand that supports a clear Employer Value Proposition (EVP) is crucial to influencing a candidate’s decision to work with your company. Perks like upskilling opportunities, remote work, and flexible hours are top EVPs that attract qualified candidates.

A clear EVP builds a culture of balance, mental health awareness, and flexibility—strengthening your employer brand with candidate-first policies.

Trend #3—Focus on candidate-driven market

The pandemic drastically increased the skills gap, making tech recruitment more challenging. With the severe shortage of tech talent, candidates now hold more power and can afford to be selective.

Competitive pay is no longer enough. Use data to understand what candidates want—work-life balance, remote options, learning opportunities—and adapt accordingly.

Recruiters need to think creatively to attract and retain top talent.

Recommended read: What NOT To Do When Recruiting Fresh Talent

Trend #4—Have a diversity and inclusion oriented company culture

Diversity and inclusion have become central to modern recruitment. While urgent hiring can delay D&I efforts, long-term success depends on inclusive teams. Our survey shows that 25.6% of HR professionals believe a diverse leadership team helps build stronger pipelines and reduces bias.

McKinsey’s Diversity Wins report confirms this: top-quartile gender-diverse companies see 25% higher profitability, and ethnically diverse teams show 36% higher returns.

It's refreshing to see the importance of an inclusive culture increasing across all job-seeking communities, especially in tech. This reiterates that D&I is a must-have, not just a good-to-have.

—Swetha Harikrishnan, Sr. HR Director, HackerEarth

Trend #5—Embed automation and AI into your recruitment systems

With the rise of AI tools like ChatGPT, automation is being adopted across every business function—including recruiting.

Manual communication with large candidate pools is inefficient. In 2024, recruitment automation and AI-powered platforms will automate candidate nurturing and communication, providing a more personalized experience while saving time.

Trend #6—Conduct remote interviews

With 32.5% of companies planning to stay remote, remote interviewing is here to stay.

Remote interviews expand access to global talent, reduce overhead costs, and increase flexibility—making the hiring process more efficient for both recruiters and candidates.

Trend #7—Be proactive in candidate engagement

Delayed responses or lack of updates can frustrate candidates and impact your brand. Proactive communication and engagement with both active and passive candidates are key to successful recruiting.

As recruitment evolves, proactive candidate engagement will become central to attracting and retaining talent. In 2023 and beyond, companies must engage both active and passive candidates through innovative strategies and technologies like chatbots and AI-powered systems. Building pipelines and nurturing relationships will enhance employer branding and ensure long-term hiring success.

—Narayani Gurunathan, CEO, PlaceNet Consultants

Recruiting Tech Talent Just Got Easier With HackerEarth

Recruiting qualified tech talent is tough—but we’re here to help. HackerEarth for Enterprises offers an all-in-one suite that simplifies sourcing, assessing, and interviewing developers.

Our tech recruiting platform enables you to:

Tap into a 6 million-strong developer community
Host custom hackathons to engage talent and boost your employer brand
Create online assessments to evaluate 80+ tech skills
Use dev-friendly IDEs and proctoring for reliable evaluations
Benchmark candidates against a global community
Conduct live coding interviews with FaceCode, our collaborative coding interview tool
Guide upskilling journeys via our Learning and Development platform
Integrate seamlessly with all leading ATS systems
Access 24/7 support with a 95% satisfaction score

Recommended read: The A-Zs Of Tech Recruiting - A Guide

Staying ahead of tech recruiting trends, improving hiring processes, and adapting to change is the way forward in 2024. Take note of the tips in this article and use them to build a future-ready hiring strategy.

Ready to streamline your tech recruiting? Try HackerEarth for Enterprises today.

Hiring Strategies

(Part 2) Essential Questions To Ask When Interviewing Developers In 2021

The first part of this blog stresses the importance of asking the right technical interview questions to assess a candidate’s coding skills. But that alone is not enough. If you want to hire the crème de la crème of the developer talent out there, you have to look for a well-rounded candidate.

Honest communication, empathy, and passion for their work are equally important as a candidate’s technical knowledge. Soft skills are like the cherry on top. They set the best of the candidates apart from the rest.

Re-examine how you are vetting your candidates. Identify the gaps in your interviews. Once you start addressing these gaps, you find developers who have the potential to be great. And those are exactly the kind of people that you want to work with!

Let’s get to it, shall we?

What constitutes a good interview question?

An ideal interview should reveal a candidate’s personality along with their technical knowledge. To formulate a comprehensive list of questions, keep in mind three important characteristics.

Questions are open-ended – questions like, “What are some of the programming languages you’re comfortable with,” instead of “Do you know this particular programming language” makes the candidate feel like they’re in control. It is also a chance to let them reply to your question in their own words.
They address the behavioral aspects of a candidate – ensure you have a few questions on your list that allow a candidate to describe a situation. A situation where a client was unhappy or a time when the developer learned a new technology. Such questions help you assess if the candidate is a good fit for the team.
There is no right or wrong answer – it is important to have a structured interview process in place. But this does not mean you have a list of standard answers in mind that you’re looking for. How candidates approach your questions shows you whether they have the makings of a successful candidate. Focus on that rather than on the actual answer itself.

Designing a conversation around these buckets of interview questions brings you to my next question, “What should you look for in each candidate to spot the best ones?”

Hire GREAT developers by asking the right questions

Before we dive deep into the interview questions, we have to think about a few things that have changed. COVID-19 has rendered working from home the new normal for the foreseeable future. As a recruiter, the onus falls upon you to understand whether the developer is comfortable working remotely and has the relevant resources to achieve maximum productivity.

#1 How do you plan your day?

Remote work gives employees the option to be flexible. You don’t have to clock in 9 hours a day as long as you get everything done on time. A developer who hasn’t always been working remotely, but has a routine in place, understands the pitfalls of working from home. It is easy to get distracted and having a schedule to fall back on ensures good productivity.

#2 Do you have experience using tools for collaboration and remote work?

Working from home reduces human interaction heavily. There is no way to just go up to your teammate’s desk and clarify issues. Virtual communication is key to getting work done. Look for what kind of remote working tools your candidate is familiar with and if they know what collaborative tools to use for different tasks.

Value-based interview questions to ask

We went around and spoke to our engineering team, and the recruiting team to see what questions they abide by; what they think makes any candidate tick.

The result? – a motley group of questions that aim to reveal the candidate’s soft skills, in addition to typical technical interview questions and test tasks.

#3 Please describe three recent projects that you worked on. What were the most interesting and challenging parts?

This is an all-encompassing question in that it lets the candidate explain at length about their work ethic—thought process, handling QA, working with a team, and managing user feedback. This also lets you dig enough to assess whether the candidate is taking credit for someone else's work or not.

#4 You’ve worked long and hard to deliver a complex feature for a client and they say it’s not what they asked for. How would you take it?

A good developer will take it in their stride, work closely with the client to find the point of disconnect, and sort out the issue. There are so many things that could go wrong or not be to the client’s liking, and it falls on the developer to remain calm and create solutions.

#5 What new programming languages or technologies have you learned recently?

While being certified in many programming languages doesn't guarantee a great developer, it still is an important technical interview question to ask. It helps highlight a thirst for knowledge and shows that the developer is eager to learn new things.

#6 What does the perfect release look like? Who is involved and what is your role?

Have the developer take you through each phase of a recent software development lifecycle. Ask them to explain their specific role in each phase in this release. This will give you an excellent perspective into a developer’s mind. Do they talk about the before and after of the release? A skilled developer would. The chances of something going wrong in a release are very high. How would the developer react? Will they be able to handle the pressure?

SUBSCRIBE to the HackerEarth blog and enrich your monthly reading with our free e-newsletter – Fresh, insightful and awesome articles straight into your inbox from around the tech recruiting world!

#7 Tell me about a time when you had to convince your lead to try a different approach?

As an example of a behavioral interview question, this is a good one. The way a developer approaches this question speaks volumes about how confident they are expressing their views, and how succinct they are in articulating those views.

#8 What have you done with all the extra hours during the pandemic?

Did you binge-watch your way through the pandemic? I’m sure every one of us has done this. Indulge in a lighthearted conversation with your candidate. This lets them talk about something they are comfortable with. Maybe they learned a new skill or took up a hobby. Get to know a candidate’s interests and little pleasures for a more rounded evaluation.

Over to you! Now that you know what aspects of a candidate to focus on, you are well-equipped to bring out the best in each candidate in their interviews. A mix of strong technical skills and interpersonal qualities is how you spot good developers for your team.

If you have more pressing interview questions to add to this list of ours, please write to us at contact@hackerearth.com.

(Part 1) Essential Questions To Ask When Recruiting Developers In 2021

The minute a developer position opens up, recruiters feel a familiar twinge of fear run down their spines. They recall their previous interview experiences, and how there seems to be a blog post a month that goes viral about bad developer interviews.

While hiring managers, especially the picky ones, would attribute this to a shortage of talented developers, what if the time has come to rethink your interview process? What if recruiters and hiring managers put too much stock into bringing out the technical aspects of each candidate and don’t put enough emphasis on their soft skills?

A report by Robert Half shows that 86% of technology leaders say it’s challenging to find IT talent. Interviewing developers should be a rewarding experience, not a challenging one. If you don’t get caught up in asking specific questions and instead design a simple conversation to gauge a candidate’s way of thinking, it throws up a lot of good insight and makes it fun too.

Developer Hiring Statistics

Asking the right technical interview questions when recruiting developers is important but so is clear communication, good work ethic, and alignment with your organization’s goals.

Let us first see what kind of technical interview questions are well-suited to revealing the coding skills and knowledge of any developer, and then tackle the behavioral aspects of the candidate that sets them apart from the rest.

Recruit GREAT developers by asking the right questions

Here are some technical interview questions that you should ask potential software engineers when interviewing.

#1 Write an algorithm for the following

Minimum Stack - Design a stack that provides 4 functions - push(item), pop, peek, and minimum, all in constant order time complexity. Then move on to coding the actual solution.
Kth Largest Element in an array - This is a standard problem with multiple solutions of best time complexity orders where N log(K) is a common one and O(N) + K log(N) is a lesser-known order. Both solutions are acceptable, not directly comparable to each other, and better than N log(N), which is sorting an array and fetching the Kth element.
Top View of a Binary Tree - Given a root node of the binary tree, return the set of all elements that will get wet if it rains on the tree. Nodes having any nodes directly above them will not get wet.
Internal implementation of a hashtable like a map/dictionary - A candidate needs to specify how key-value pairs are stored, hashing is used and collisions are handled. A good developer not only knows how to use this concept but also how it works. If the developer also knows how the data structure scales when the number of records increases in the hashtable, that is a bonus.

Algorithms demonstrate a candidate’s ability to break down a complex problem into steps. Reasoning and pattern recognition capabilities are some more factors to look for when assessing a candidate. A good candidate can code his thought process of the algorithm finalized during the discussion.

Looking for a great place to hire developers in the US? Try Jooble!

#2 Formulate solutions for the below low-level design (LLD) questions

What is LLD? In your own words, specify the different aspects covered in LLD.
Design a movie ticket booking application like BookMyShow. Ensure that your database schema is tailored for a theatre with multiple screens and takes care of booking, seat availability, seat arrangement, and seat locking. Your solution does not have to extend to the payment option.
Design a basic social media application. Design database schema and APIs for a platform like Twitter with features for following a user, tweeting a post, seeing your tweet, and seeing a user's tweet.

Such questions do not have a right or wrong answer. They primarily serve to reveal a developer’s thought process and the way they approach a problem.

Recommended read: Hardest Tech Roles to Fill (+ solutions!)

#3 Some high-level design (HLD) questions

What do you understand by HLD? Can you specify the difference between LLD and HLD?
Design a social media application. In addition to designing a platform like Twitter with features for following a user, tweeting a post, seeing your tweet, and seeing a user's tweet, design a timeline. After designing a timeline where you can see your followers’ tweets, scale it for a larger audience. If you still have time, try to scale it for a celebrity use case.
Design for a train ticket booking application like IRCTC. Incorporate auth, features to choose start and end stations, view available trains and available seats between two stations, save reservation of seats from start to end stations, and lock them till payment confirmation.
How will you design a basic relational database? The database should support tables, columns, basic field types like integer and text, foreign keys, and indexes. The way a developer approaches this question is important. A good developer designs a solution around storage and memory management.

Here’s a pro-tip for you. LLD questions can be answered by both beginners and experienced developers. Mostly, senior developers can be expected to answer HLD questions. Choose your interview questions set wisely, and ask questions relevant to your candidate’s experience.

#4 Have you ever worked with SQL? Write queries for a specific use case that requires multiple joins.

Example: Create a table with separate columns for student name, subject, and marks scored. Return student names and ranks of each student. The rank of a student depends on the total of marks in all subjects.

Not all developers would have experience working with SQL but some knowledge about how data is stored/structured is useful. Developers should be familiar with simple concepts like joins, retrieval queries, and the basics of DBMS.

#5 What do you think is wrong with this code?

Instead of asking developer candidates to write code on a piece of paper (which is outdated, anyway), ask them to debug existing code. This is another way to assess their technical skills. Place surreptitious errors in the code and evaluate their attention to detail.

Now that you know exactly what technical skills to look for and when questions to ask when interviewing developers, the time has come to assess the soft skills of these candidates. Part 2 of this blog throws light on the how and why of evaluating candidates based on their communication skills, work ethic, and alignment with the company’s goals.

View all

Hiring Strategies

Best Pre-Employment Assessments: Optimizing Your Hiring Process for 2024

In today's competitive talent market, attracting and retaining top performers is crucial for any organization's success. However, traditional hiring methods like relying solely on resumes and interviews may not always provide a comprehensive picture of a candidate's skills and potential. This is where pre-employment assessments come into play.

What is Pre-Employement Assessment?

Pre-employment assessments are standardized tests and evaluations administered to candidates before they are hired. These assessments can help you objectively measure a candidate's knowledge, skills, abilities, and personality traits, allowing you to make data-driven hiring decisions.

By exploring and evaluating the best pre-employment assessment tools and tests available, you can:

Improve the accuracy and efficiency of your hiring process.
Identify top talent with the right skills and cultural fit.
Reduce the risk of bad hires.
Enhance the candidate experience by providing a clear and objective evaluation process.

This guide will provide you with valuable insights into the different types of pre-employment assessments available and highlight some of the best tools, to help you optimize your hiring process for 2024.

Why pre-employment assessments are key in hiring

While resumes and interviews offer valuable insights, they can be subjective and susceptible to bias. Pre-employment assessments provide a standardized and objective way to evaluate candidates, offering several key benefits:

Improved decision-making:

By measuring specific skills and knowledge, assessments help you identify candidates who possess the qualifications necessary for the job.
Reduced bias:

Standardized assessments mitigate the risks of unconscious bias that can creep into traditional interview processes.
Increased efficiency:

Assessments can streamline the initial screening process, allowing you to focus on the most promising candidates.
Enhanced candidate experience:

When used effectively, assessments can provide candidates with a clear understanding of the required skills and a fair chance to showcase their abilities.

Types of pre-employment assessments

There are various types of pre-employment assessments available, each catering to different needs and objectives. Here's an overview of some common types:

1. Skill Assessments:

Technical Skills: These assessments evaluate specific technical skills and knowledge relevant to the job role, such as programming languages, software proficiency, or industry-specific expertise. HackerEarth offers a wide range of validated technical skill assessments covering various programming languages, frameworks, and technologies.
Soft Skills: These employment assessments measure non-technical skills like communication, problem-solving, teamwork, and critical thinking, crucial for success in any role.

2. Personality Assessments:

These employment assessments can provide insights into a candidate's personality traits, work style, and cultural fit within your organization.

3. Cognitive Ability Tests:

These tests measure a candidate's general mental abilities, such as reasoning, problem-solving, and learning potential.

4. Integrity Assessments:

These employment assessments aim to identify potential risks associated with a candidate's honesty, work ethic, and compliance with company policies.

By understanding the different types of assessments and their applications, you can choose the ones that best align with your specific hiring needs and ensure you hire the most qualified and suitable candidates for your organization.

Leading employment assessment tools and tests in 2024

Choosing the right pre-employment assessment tool depends on your specific needs and budget. Here's a curated list of some of the top pre-employment assessment tools and tests available in 2024, with brief overviews:

HackerEarth:

A comprehensive platform offering a wide range of validated skill assessments in various programming languages, frameworks, and technologies. It also allows for the creation of custom assessments and integrates seamlessly with various recruitment platforms.
SHL:

Provides a broad selection of assessments, including skill tests, personality assessments, and cognitive ability tests. They offer customizable solutions and cater to various industries.
Pymetrics:

Utilizes gamified assessments to evaluate cognitive skills, personality traits, and cultural fit. They offer a data-driven approach and emphasize candidate experience.
Wonderlic:

Offers a variety of assessments, including the Wonderlic Personnel Test, which measures general cognitive ability. They also provide aptitude and personality assessments.
Harver:

An assessment platform focusing on candidate experience with video interviews, gamified assessments, and skills tests. They offer pre-built assessments and customization options.

Remember: This list is not exhaustive, and further research is crucial to identify the tool that aligns best with your specific needs and budget. Consider factors like the types of assessments offered, pricing models, integrations with your existing HR systems, and user experience when making your decision.

Choosing the right pre-employment assessment tool

Instead of full individual tool reviews, consider focusing on 2–3 key platforms. For each platform, explore:

Target audience: Who are their assessments best suited for (e.g., technical roles, specific industries)?
Types of assessments offered: Briefly list the available assessment categories (e.g., technical skills, soft skills, personality).
Key features: Highlight unique functionalities like gamification, custom assessment creation, or seamless integrations.
Effectiveness: Briefly mention the platform's approach to assessment validation and reliability.
User experience: Consider including user reviews or ratings where available.

Comparative analysis of assessment options

Instead of a comprehensive comparison, consider focusing on specific use cases:

Technical skills assessment:

Compare HackerEarth and Wonderlic based on their technical skill assessment options, focusing on the variety of languages/technologies covered and assessment formats.
Soft skills and personality assessment:

Compare SHL and Pymetrics based on their approaches to evaluating soft skills and personality traits, highlighting any unique features like gamification or data-driven insights.
Candidate experience:

Compare Harver and Wonderlic based on their focus on candidate experience, mentioning features like video interviews or gamified assessments.

Additional tips:

Encourage readers to visit the platforms' official websites for detailed features and pricing information.
Include links to reputable third-party review sites where users share their experiences with various tools.

Best practices for using pre-employment assessment tools

Integrating pre-employment assessments effectively requires careful planning and execution. Here are some best practices to follow:

Define your assessment goals:

Clearly identify what you aim to achieve with assessments. Are you targeting specific skills, personality traits, or cultural fit?
Choose the right assessments:

Select tools that align with your defined goals and the specific requirements of the open position.
Set clear expectations:

Communicate the purpose and format of the assessments to candidates in advance, ensuring transparency and building trust.
Integrate seamlessly:

Ensure your chosen assessment tool integrates smoothly with your existing HR systems and recruitment workflow.
Train your team:

Equip your hiring managers and HR team with the knowledge and skills to interpret assessment results effectively.

Interpreting assessment results accurately

Assessment results offer valuable data points, but interpreting them accurately is crucial for making informed hiring decisions. Here are some key considerations:

Use results as one data point:

Consider assessment results alongside other information, such as resumes, interviews, and references, for a holistic view of the candidate.
Understand score limitations:

Don't solely rely on raw scores. Understand the assessment's validity and reliability and the potential for cultural bias or individual test anxiety.
Look for patterns and trends:

Analyze results across different assessments and identify consistent patterns that align with your desired candidate profile.
Focus on potential, not guarantees:

Assessments indicate potential, not guarantees of success. Use them alongside other evaluation methods to make well-rounded hiring decisions.

Choosing the right pre-employment assessment tools

Selecting the most suitable pre-employment assessment tool requires careful consideration of your organization's specific needs. Here are some key factors to guide your decision:

Industry and role requirements:

Different industries and roles demand varying skill sets and qualities. Choose assessments that target the specific skills and knowledge relevant to your open positions.
Company culture and values:

Align your assessments with your company culture and values. For example, if collaboration is crucial, look for assessments that evaluate teamwork and communication skills.
Candidate experience:

Prioritize tools that provide a positive and smooth experience for candidates. This can enhance your employer brand and attract top talent.

Budget and accessibility considerations

Budget and accessibility are essential factors when choosing pre-employment assessments:

Budget:

Assessment tools come with varying pricing models (subscriptions, pay-per-use, etc.). Choose a tool that aligns with your budget and offers the functionalities you need.
Accessibility:

Ensure the chosen assessment is accessible to all candidates, considering factors like language options, disability accommodations, and internet access requirements.

Additional Tips:

Free trials and demos: Utilize free trials or demos offered by assessment platforms to experience their functionalities firsthand.
Consult with HR professionals: Seek guidance from HR professionals or recruitment specialists with expertise in pre-employment assessments.
Read user reviews and comparisons: Gain insights from other employers who use various assessment tools.

By carefully considering these factors, you can select the pre-employment assessment tool that best aligns with your organizational needs, budget, and commitment to an inclusive hiring process.

Remember, pre-employment assessments are valuable tools, but they should not be the sole factor in your hiring decisions. Use them alongside other evaluation methods and prioritize building a fair and inclusive hiring process that attracts and retains top talent.

Future trends in pre-employment assessments

The pre-employment assessment landscape is constantly evolving, with innovative technologies and practices emerging. Here are some potential future trends to watch:

Artificial intelligence (AI):

AI-powered assessments can analyze candidate responses, written work, and even resumes, using natural language processing to extract relevant insights and identify potential candidates.
Adaptive testing:

These assessments adjust the difficulty level of questions based on the candidate's performance, providing a more efficient and personalized evaluation.
Micro-assessments:

Short, focused assessments delivered through mobile devices can assess specific skills or knowledge on-the-go, streamlining the screening process.
Gamification:

Engaging and interactive game-based elements can make the assessment experience more engaging and assess skills in a realistic and dynamic way.

Conclusion

Pre-employment assessments, when used thoughtfully and ethically, can be a powerful tool to optimize your hiring process, identify top talent, and build a successful workforce for your organization. By understanding the different types of assessments available, exploring top-rated tools like HackerEarth, and staying informed about emerging trends, you can make informed decisions that enhance your ability to attract, evaluate, and hire the best candidates for the future.

Hiring Strategies

Tech Layoffs: What To Expect In 2024

Layoffs in the IT industry are becoming more widespread as companies fight to remain competitive in a fast-changing market; many turn to layoffs as a cost-cutting measure. Last year, 1,000 companies including big tech giants and startups, laid off over two lakhs of employees. But first, what are layoffs in the tech business, and how do they impact the industry?

Tech layoffs are the termination of employment for some employees by a technology company. It might happen for various reasons, including financial challenges, market conditions, firm reorganization, or the after-effects of a pandemic. While layoffs are not unique to the IT industry, they are becoming more common as companies look for methods to cut costs while remaining competitive.

The consequences of layoffs in technology may be catastrophic for employees who lose their jobs and the firms forced to make these difficult decisions. Layoffs can result in the loss of skill and expertise and a drop in employee morale and productivity. However, they may be required for businesses to stay afloat in a fast-changing market.

This article will examine the reasons for layoffs in the technology industry, their influence on the industry, and what may be done to reduce their negative impacts. We will also look at the various methods for tracking tech layoffs.

What are tech layoffs?

The term "tech layoff" describes the termination of employees by an organization in the technology industry. A company might do this as part of a restructuring during hard economic times.

In recent times, the tech industry has witnessed a wave of significant layoffs, affecting some of the world’s leading technology companies, including Amazon, Microsoft, Meta (formerly Facebook), Apple, Cisco, SAP, and Sony. These layoffs are a reflection of the broader economic challenges and market adjustments facing the sector, including factors like slowing revenue growth, global economic uncertainties, and the need to streamline operations for efficiency.

Each of these tech giants has announced job cuts for various reasons, though common themes include restructuring efforts to stay competitive and agile, responding to over-hiring during the pandemic when demand for tech services surged, and preparing for a potentially tough economic climate ahead. Despite their dominant positions in the market, these companies are not immune to the economic cycles and technological shifts that influence operational and strategic decisions, including workforce adjustments.

This trend of layoffs in the tech industry underscores the volatile nature of the tech sector, which is often at the mercy of rapid changes in technology, consumer preferences, and the global economy. It also highlights the importance of adaptability and resilience for companies and employees alike in navigating the uncertainties of the tech landscape.

Causes for layoffs in the tech industry

Why are tech employees suffering so much?

Yes, the market is always uncertain, but why resort to tech layoffs?

Various factors cause tech layoffs, including company strategy changes, market shifts, or financial difficulties. Companies may lay off employees if they need help to generate revenue, shift their focus to new products or services, or automate certain jobs.

In addition, some common reasons could be:

Financial struggles

Currently, the state of the global market is uncertain due to economic recession, ongoing war, and other related phenomena. If a company is experiencing financial difficulties, only sticking to pay cuts may not be helpful—it may need to reduce its workforce to cut costs.

Also, read: 6 Steps To Create A Detailed Recruiting Budget (Template Included)

Changes in demand

The tech industry is constantly evolving, and companies would have to adjust their workforce to meet changing market conditions. For instance, companies are adopting remote work culture, which surely affects on-premises activity, and companies could do away with some number of tech employees at the backend.

Restructuring

Companies may also lay off employees as part of a greater restructuring effort, such as spinning off a division or consolidating operations.

Automation

With the advancement in technology and automation, some jobs previously done by human labor may be replaced by machines, resulting in layoffs.

Mergers and acquisitions

When two companies merge, there is often overlap in their operations, leading to layoffs as the new company looks to streamline its workforce.

But it's worth noting that layoffs are not exclusive to the tech industry and can happen in any industry due to uncertainty in the market.

Will layoffs increase in 2024?

It is challenging to estimate the rise or fall of layoffs. The overall state of the economy, the health of certain industries, and the performance of individual companies will play a role in deciding the degree of layoffs in any given year.

But it is also seen that, in the first 15 days of this year, 91 organizations laid off over 24,000 tech workers, and over 1,000 corporations cut down more than 150,000 workers in 2022, according to an Economic Times article.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a huge economic slowdown and forced several businesses to downsize their employees. However, some businesses rehired or expanded their personnel when the world began to recover.

So, given the current level of economic uncertainty, predicting how the situation will unfold is difficult.

Also, read: 4 Images That Show What Developers Think Of Layoffs In Tech

What types of companies are prone to tech layoffs?

Tech layoffs can occur in organizations of all sizes and various areas.

Following are some examples of companies that have experienced tech layoffs in the past:

Large tech firms

Companies such as IBM, Microsoft, Twitter, Better.com, Alibaba, and HP have all experienced layoffs in recent years as part of restructuring initiatives or cost-cutting measures.

Market scenarios are still being determined after Elon Musk's decision to lay off employees. Along with tech giants, some smaller companies and startups have also been affected by layoffs.

Startups

Because they frequently work with limited resources, startups may be forced to lay off staff if they cannot get further funding or need to pivot due to market downfall.

Small and medium-sized businesses

Small and medium-sized businesses face layoffs due to high competition or if the products/services they offer are no longer in demand.

Companies in certain industries

Some sectors of the technological industry, such as the semiconductor industry or automotive industry, may be more prone to layoffs than others.

Companies that lean on government funding

Companies that rely significantly on government contracts may face layoffs if the government cuts technology spending or contracts are not renewed.

How to track tech layoffs?

You can’t stop tech company layoffs, but you should be keeping track of them. We, HR professionals and recruiters, can also lend a helping hand in these tough times by circulating “layoff lists” across social media sites like LinkedIn and Twitter to help people land jobs quicker. Firefish Software put together a master list of sources to find fresh talent during the layoff period.

Because not all layoffs are publicly disclosed, tracking tech industry layoffs can be challenging, and some may go undetected. There are several ways to keep track of tech industry layoffs:

Use tech layoffs tracker

Layoff trackers like thelayoff.com and layoffs.fyi provide up-to-date information on layoffs.

In addition, they aid in identifying trends in layoffs within the tech industry. It can reveal which industries are seeing the most layoffs and which companies are the most affected.

Companies can use layoff trackers as an early warning system and compare their performance to that of other companies in their field.

News articles

Because many news sites cover tech layoffs as they happen, keeping a watch on technology sector stories can provide insight into which organizations are laying off employees and how many individuals have been affected.

Social media

Organizations and employees frequently publish information about layoffs in tech on social media platforms; thus, monitoring companies' social media accounts or following key hashtags can provide real-time updates regarding layoffs.

Online forums and communities

There are online forums and communities dedicated to discussing tech industry news, and they can be an excellent source of layoff information.

Government reports

Government agencies such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) publish data on layoffs and unemployment, which can provide a more comprehensive picture of the technology industry's status.

How do companies reduce tech layoffs?

Layoffs in tech are hard – for the employee who is losing their job, the recruiter or HR professional who is tasked with informing them, and the company itself. So, how can we aim to avoid layoffs? Here are some ways to minimize resorting to letting people go:

Salary reductions

Instead of laying off employees, businesses can lower the salaries or wages of all employees. It can be accomplished by instituting compensation cuts or salary freezes.

Implementing a hiring freeze

Businesses can halt employing new personnel to cut costs. It can be a short-term solution until the company's financial situation improves.

Also, read: What Recruiters Can Focus On During A Tech Hiring Freeze

Non-essential expense reduction

Businesses might search for ways to cut or remove non-essential expenses such as travel, training, and office expenses.

Reducing working hours

Companies can reduce employee working hours to save money, such as implementing a four-day workweek or a shorter workday.

These options may not always be viable and may have their problems, but before laying off, a company owes it to its people to consider every other alternative, and formulate the best solution.

Tech layoffs to bleed into this year

While we do not know whether this trend will continue or subside during 2023, we do know one thing. We have to be prepared for a wave of layoffs that is still yet to hit. As of last month, Layoffs.fyi had already tracked 170+ companies conducting 55,970 layoffs in 2023.

So recruiters, let’s join arms, distribute those layoff lists like there’s no tomorrow, and help all those in need of a job! :)

Hiring Tools

What is Headhunting In Recruitment?: Types & How Does It Work?

In today’s fast-paced world, recruiting talent has become increasingly complicated. Technological advancements, high workforce expectations and a highly competitive market have pushed recruitment agencies to adopt innovative strategies for recruiting various types of talent. This article aims to explore one such recruitment strategy – headhunting.

What is Headhunting in recruitment?

In headhunting, companies or recruitment agencies identify, engage and hire highly skilled professionals to fill top positions in the respective companies. It is different from the traditional process in which candidates looking for job opportunities approach companies or recruitment agencies. In headhunting, executive headhunters, as recruiters are referred to, approach prospective candidates with the hiring company’s requirements and wait for them to respond. Executive headhunters generally look for passive candidates, those who work at crucial positions and are not on the lookout for new work opportunities. Besides, executive headhunters focus on filling critical, senior-level positions indispensable to companies. Depending on the nature of the operation, headhunting has three types. They are described later in this article. Before we move on to understand the types of headhunting, here is how the traditional recruitment process and headhunting are different.

How do headhunting and traditional recruitment differ from each other?

Headhunting is a type of recruitment process in which top-level managers and executives in similar positions are hired. Since these professionals are not on the lookout for jobs, headhunters have to thoroughly understand the hiring companies’ requirements and study the work profiles of potential candidates before creating a list.

In the traditional approach, there is a long list of candidates applying for jobs online and offline. Candidates approach recruiters for jobs. Apart from this primary difference, there are other factors that define the difference between these two schools of recruitment.

AspectHeadhuntingTraditional RecruitmentCandidate TypePrimarily passive candidateActive job seekersApproachFocused on specific high-level rolesBroader; includes various levelsScopeproactive outreachReactive: candidates applyCostGenerally more expensive due to expertise requiredTypically lower costsControlManaged by headhuntersManaged internally by HR teams

All the above parameters will help you to understand how headhunting differs from traditional recruitment methods, better.

Types of headhunting in recruitment

Direct headhunting: In direct recruitment, hiring teams reach out to potential candidates through personal communication. Companies conduct direct headhunting in-house, without outsourcing the process to hiring recruitment agencies. Very few businesses conduct this type of recruitment for top jobs as it involves extensive screening across networks outside the company’s expanse.

Indirect headhunting: This method involves recruiters getting in touch with their prospective candidates through indirect modes of communication such as email and phone calls. Indirect headhunting is less intrusive and allows candidates to respond at their convenience.Third-party recruitment: Companies approach external recruitment agencies or executive headhunters to recruit highly skilled professionals for top positions. This method often leverages the company’s extensive contact network and expertise in niche industries.

How does headhunting work?

Finding highly skilled professionals to fill critical positions can be tricky if there is no system for it. Expert executive headhunters employ recruitment software to conduct headhunting efficiently as it facilitates a seamless recruitment process for executive headhunters. Most software is AI-powered and expedites processes like candidate sourcing, interactions with prospective professionals and upkeep of communication history. This makes the process of executive search in recruitment a little bit easier. Apart from using software to recruit executives, here are the various stages of finding high-calibre executives through headhunting.

Identifying the role

Once there is a vacancy for a top job, one of the top executives like a CEO, director or the head of the company, reach out to the concerned personnel with their requirements. Depending on how large a company is, they may choose to headhunt with the help of an external recruiting agency or conduct it in-house. Generally, the task is assigned to external recruitment agencies specializing in headhunting. Executive headhunters possess a database of highly qualified professionals who work in crucial positions in some of the best companies. This makes them the top choice of conglomerates looking to hire some of the best talents in the industry.

Defining the job

Once an executive headhunter or a recruiting agency is finalized, companies conduct meetings to discuss the nature of the role, how the company works, the management hierarchy among other important aspects of the job. Headhunters are expected to understand these points thoroughly and establish a clear understanding of their expectations and goals.

Candidate identification and sourcing

Headhunters analyse and understand the requirements of their clients and begin creating a pool of suitable candidates from their database. The professionals are shortlisted after conducting extensive research of job profiles, number of years of industry experience, professional networks and online platforms.

Approaching candidates

Once the potential candidates have been identified and shortlisted, headhunters move on to get in touch with them discreetly through various communication channels. As such candidates are already working at top level positions at other companies, executive headhunters have to be low-key while doing so.

Assessment and Evaluation

In this next step, extensive screening and evaluation of candidates is conducted to determine their suitability for the advertised position.

Interviews and negotiations

Compensation is a major topic of discussion among recruiters and prospective candidates. A lot of deliberation and negotiation goes on between the hiring organization and the selected executives which is facilitated by the headhunters.

Finalizing the hire

Things come to a close once the suitable candidates accept the job offer. On accepting the offer letter, headhunters help finalize the hiring process to ensure a smooth transition.

The steps listed above form the blueprint for a typical headhunting process. Headhunting has been crucial in helping companies hire the right people for crucial positions that come with great responsibility. However, all systems have a set of challenges no matter how perfect their working algorithm is. Here are a few challenges that talent acquisition agencies face while headhunting.

Common challenges in headhunting

Despite its advantages, headhunting also presents certain challenges:

Cost Implications: Engaging headhunters can be more expensive than traditional recruitment methods due to their specialized skills and services.

Time-Consuming Process: While headhunting can be efficient, finding the right candidate for senior positions may still take time due to thorough evaluation processes.

Market Competition: The competition for top talent is fierce; organizations must present compelling offers to attract passive candidates away from their current roles.

Although the above mentioned factors can pose challenges in the headhunting process, there are more upsides than there are downsides to it. Here is how headhunting has helped revolutionize the recruitment of high-profile candidates.

Advantages of Headhunting

Headhunting offers several advantages over traditional recruitment methods:

Access to Passive Candidates: By targeting individuals who are not actively seeking new employment, organisations can access a broader pool of highly skilled professionals.

Confidentiality: The discreet nature of headhunting protects both candidates’ current employment situations and the hiring organisation’s strategic interests.

Customized Search: Headhunters tailor their search based on the specific needs of the organization, ensuring a better fit between candidates and company culture.

Industry Expertise: Many headhunters specialise in particular sectors, providing valuable insights into market dynamics and candidate qualifications.

Conclusion

Although headhunting can be costly and time-consuming, it is one of the most effective ways of finding good candidates for top jobs. Executive headhunters face several challenges maintaining the g discreetness while getting in touch with prospective clients. As organizations navigate increasingly competitive markets, understanding the nuances of headhunting becomes vital for effective recruitment strategies. To keep up with the technological advancements, it is better to optimise your hiring process by employing online recruitment software like HackerEarth, which enables companies to conduct multiple interviews and evaluation tests online, thus improving candidate experience. By collaborating with skilled headhunters who possess industry expertise and insights into market trends, companies can enhance their chances of securing high-caliber professionals who drive success in their respective fields.

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Tech Assessment

This Is Recruiting: Is Tech Recruiting A Sales Or A Marketing Role?

#1. Understand why you need a ‘personal brand’

#2. Stop being a reactionary recruiter

#3. Own your seat at the table

Check out the full episode here:

How Recruiting The Right Tech Talent Can Solve Tech Debt

What is 'Technical Debt'?

Why does it occur?

How does one identify and remedy technical debt?

The increase in time needed to introduce new features

The necessity for intensive knowledge transfers

Security concerns

High maintenance costs

Lack of alignment with the bigger picture

So, what can be done to remedy technical debt?

Consistently refactoring the codebase

Going open source

Diligent documentation

Timely testing

Continuously improving the development strategy

Hiring the right talent is the key

A hiring manager’s guide to hiring the right developer

1. Identify your requirements

2. Get everyone on the same page

3.Know where to find developers

Further Reading

How to Attract and Select the Best Developers

4. Start with a conversation and only then jump to take-home coding tests

5. Listen, learn, and collaborate during the interview

6. Hire the most promising candidate

Keeping Culture Alive: What Recruiters Can Do While Hiring Remotely

The Vibe. How we miss thee!

Bringing us back to the vibe, and how it translates to our new normal.

Remote hacking the Vibe.

Step 1: Re-craft the EVP to answer the most important questions candidates have in this new normal

Step 2: Regular communication that makes employees feel included

Step 3: Help the employee through the onboarding and acclimatizing process

Final Thoughts.

Top 10 cities to hire developers

Top 10 cities to hire developers

1. Bangalore, India

2. Manila, Philippines

3. Krakow, Poland

4. Dublin, Ireland

5. San Jose, Costa Rica

6. Shanghai, China

7. Prague, Czech Republic

8. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

9. Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

10. Johannesburg, South Africa

Master Recruiting Metrics ft. The Crown & HackerEarth

1) Reducing your time-to-hire

How can you screen developers and schedule interviews better?

Create a take-home coding test for free

2) Decreasing your cost-per-hire

How can you reduce your hiring cost?

Make your tech team your brand advocate

3) Boosting your retention rate

Technical Screening Guide: All You Need To Know

Explore HackerEarth’s top products for Hiring & Innovation

Meet our Authors

7 Tech Recruiting Trends To Watch Out For In 2024

7 tech recruiting trends for 2024

Trend #1—Leverage data-driven recruiting

Trend #2—Have impactful employer branding

Trend #3—Focus on candidate-driven market

Trend #4—Have a diversity and inclusion oriented company culture

Trend #5—Embed automation and AI into your recruitment systems

Trend #6—Conduct remote interviews

Trend #7—Be proactive in candidate engagement

Recruiting Tech Talent Just Got Easier With HackerEarth

(Part 2) Essential Questions To Ask When Interviewing Developers In 2021

What constitutes a good interview question?

Hire GREAT developers by asking the right questions

#1 How do you plan your day?

#2 Do you have experience using tools for collaboration and remote work?

Value-based interview questions to ask

#3 Please describe three recent projects that you worked on. What were the most interesting and challenging parts?

#4 You’ve worked long and hard to deliver a complex feature for a client and they say it’s not what they asked for. How would you take it?