Summary

Coding challenges are a great way to assess a candidate’s coding skills. But you need to be sure to use the right type of challenge and give the candidate all the information they need to complete it. If you do, you will be well on your way to hiring the best developers for your team. 

A coding challenge is just one way to figure out if an applicant would be a good fit for your company. It helps to give you an idea of a software engineer’s technical skills; if they can approach problem-solving in a clear and concise manner; and if they would understand the requirements of the job under pressure. It is important to make sure that the coding challenges are realistic and accurately reflects what an employee would encounter while on the job. This significantly increases your chances of hiring the best developer for the position. 

Why coding challenges/codathons are important 

76% of organizations rely on some sort of Pre – Hire Assessments to evaluate candidates. These codathons (Hackathon for coding challenges) or coding assessments reveal the depth of candidate skills mentioned on the resume in addition to a foundational understanding of their problem-solving and logical abilities. Additionally, when hiring managers have access to relevant, fact-based information on candidates’ abilities and performance, they are dissuaded from making a biased selection of candidates. Thereby making way for a thorough and impartial hiring procedure. 

Best practices for coding challenges 

If you want to get the most out of coding challenges, it ought to reflect a problem that actually occurs in software development. 

Finding a bug in troublesome code is one example of a challenge. Another challenge is developing a new feature and figuring out how to integrate it. To objectively quantify the performance of a candidate throughout the coding challenge, there should be clear goals and measuring mechanisms in place. The hiring organization saves time by using coding challenges, and the applicants involved get the opportunity to highlight their technical skills. 

1.Concentrate on real time problems 

Solving real-world problems for job prospects demonstrates their aptitude for the position and their potential impact on the firm. You might draw inspiration from your company’s past successes or current difficulties. These questions will be easier to understand than trickier ones. As a bonus, it will provide the candidate an indication of what they may expect to encounter on the job.  

As a result, people can see if they are a good match for the job by doing this. Coding challenges of this type, which do not focus on the specific skills you seek or problems your company will face, are not a suitable fit for the assessments. The more specific & detailed the challenges are, the more likely you are to discover a suitable candidate for the position. 

2.Use language agnostic challenges 

Make your query more about business processes and less about abilities with specific programming languages as one of the best methods to implement coding challenges. 

When you evaluate an employee based on their ability to respond to a business case, as opposed to something that they might easily get online, you gain a more accurate picture of how successful they are in their actual position. Due to this, many companies employ language-agnostic interview questions, which enable anyone who has experience programming to respond to the questions using whichever programming language they are most comfortable with. 

3.Include pair programming as a screening process 

Pair programming is an effective method for evaluating a job candidate’s ability to work with others. The ability to work well with others is necessary for a successful developer. During technical interviews, candidates’ abilities are evaluated using a method called pair programming. 

The operation is as follows: Both the interviewer and the interviewee will use the same coding platform to jointly tackle a technical issue. The actual test takes forty-five minutes to complete. During this time, the interviewer or evaluator will lead the candidate through the process, but the candidate will be responsible for writing most of the code. They talk about the procedure, and each person has the opportunity to ask questions, offer their opinion, and express concerns. 

The interviewers are able to better grasp the candidate’s coding abilities, as well as their ability to collaborate and communicate with others, through the use of a pair programming interview.