

Recruiting Developers? Create An Awesome Candidate Experience - rchaudhary
http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/92633/Recruiting-Developers-Create-An-Awesome-Candidate-Experience.aspx

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Apreche
This article is making the issue much more complicated than it needs to be,
and is trying to invent fancy buzzwords and nonsense like "candidate
experience."

The fundamental problem is that job interviews are traditionally structured in
such a way that the candidate is trying out for the position. It has a built
in assumption that the candidate wants the job and is trying to convince the
company that they are the right person. Thus, interview processes are usually
about evaluating the candidate.

Candidate evaluation and filtering is necessary. There are a lot of people out
there trying to get hired who are lying and faking their skills. See the
people who can't do fizzbuzz. However, the overall situation is that demand
for these technical skills far exceeds the supply. That means that when
someone passes through your filters, you need to severely limit your
evaluation of them. Instead, you need to sell them. The talent has the upper
hand. They probably already have a job, and can get one anywhere. If you want
them to work for you, you need to be in sales mode, not interview mode.

~~~
redwood
I'm new to coding but tried, and discovered I can indeed do Fizzbuzz. Thank
you for a confidence boost :)

I can't help but feel so spoiled by the fact that I'm learning python which
makes everything so darned easy. I suppose being able to do something in
python isn't equivalent to being able to do it in other languages! Confidence
eroded again!

~~~
MaxGabriel
Actually I think if you can do it in Python, you can do it in C-based
languages/Java/ruby etc. There are some exceptions like generators, but as a
general rule Python just improves the readability and expressiveness with e.g.
slices.

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nzmsv
I'm not sure I'd call the feedback obtained by asking the candidate "Would you
recommend us?" before letting them know if they've been hired unbiased.
Personally, I would be thinking about ways my answer would impact the hiring
decision and/or salary negotiation.

~~~
dshah
That's a great point.

I wonder which would one be less biased. My leaning now is towards asking the
question after the decision. Perhaps even discard the feedback from folks that
were offered a position -- that way, the focus is on making sure even those
that weren't offered a position still had a positive experience.

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srlake
There is a startup helping to create a better interview and pre-screening
experience. <http://www.kiratalent.com/>

I went through an interview process for one program that was using their
platform and it was straightforward and took me only about 15 minutes to
record video answers to the interview questions from my kitchen table.

If they were to add some timed applied programming questions it could become
interesting for hiring devs. Video questions (interpersonal skills) + timed
coding questions (tech skills) might give a good pre-screen, at least.

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nasalgoat
Offering gift cards and getting applicants to take a survey? Call me old
fashioned but that would turn me off working there, because that's weird and
it would make me think the company was weird.

~~~
dshah
You're right. I reconsidered that particular idea and have struck it out of
the original article.

Thanks for the candid feedback.

