With competition in the world of programming and development continually increasing, hiring
processes are getting complicated every day. Every hiring process now needs multiple
screening processes, interview rounds and more. And we don’t blame you. It is extremely
crucial to find the right fit to last a long time. And an ideal hiring process as is obvious
makes this conundrum easy to resolve.
But how does one create the ideal hiring process? And furthermore, how do we form the best
framework for the technical interview? What steps and tools do we utilize to achieve an
efficient process? If you often find yourself asking these questions, this article may help.
From the requirements to create the perfect hiring process, to the tools that may help you
conduct an effective technical interview, we’ve got your back.
Our Ideal Hiring Process
The ideal hiring process includes the following features -
Multiple Rounds
No candidate can be evaluated through a preliminary interview and screening process. Each candidate must be vetted, analyzed, tested to suit the company’s fit before being hired. This includes a test of technical and interpersonal competence. A time-consuming process, yet an essential one.
Well-thought Out Rounds
Each round must evaluate a different aspect of the candidate. For instance, the first round consists of a resume screening and a telephonic interview. Then the second round must analyze aspects of the candidate that cannot be verified through phone or paper, i.e, their coding abilities. Each round must test the candidate to a T, making sure to take note of things that make them stand apart.
Multiple Rubrics For Each Round
A rubric is a competency whose evaluation determines the hireability of the candidate. Each round must be broken down into multiple rubrics such that during evaluation. The marking of each rubric shall determine the well-rounded hireability of the candidate. For instance, the coding round can have rubrics such as their coding speed, accuracy, style, coverage, and traceability on hinting.
Well-rounded technical interview
The technical interview is quite possibly the most important aspect of the entire hiring
process. As an interviewer, you evaluate not only their skill but their ability to work in
pressure. Their response determines their hireability.
Plover has never been about finding your company new hires fast, or many hires for that
matter. Our mission is to find you the perfect fit for your company, somebody that matches
and complements each and every one of your needs. And finding such a candidate undoubtedly
shall require multiple well-thought-out rounds of testing and deliberation.
The Ideal Technical Interview
So now we have an idea about the hiring process. What about the technical interview? At the
cost of sounding repetitive, the technical interview is quite possibly the most important
part. As a hiring manager, you get to interact with your next potential hire in a one-to-one
capacity. You evaluate your candidate’s technical skills and get an understanding of how
they would work in a team environment.
Now, what do our technical interviews look like? How are technical interviews different from
every other interview out there? What makes the technical interview special?
A myriad of questions come up when talking about the technical interview. The truth is, all
interviews are different. They change based on the requirement of the interviewer, which in
this case is you.
Technical interviews are different from preliminary coding examinations or even telephonic
interviews. The technical interview questions asked in the interview are specifically
tailored to the position being applied for. However, you could always ask questions that are
not determined beforehand. All questions asked in the interview are mapped to the rubrics
they correspond to. The best technical interview questions are the ones that are moulded to
fit the understanding of the candidate. And yet, they are placed a bit out of reach, because
as an interviewer, you don’t intend to spoon-feed your candidate. Your questions are easy to
understand but tricky to approach. And the final marking of these questions determines how
well the candidate has performed.
As an interviewer, the freedom of testing the candidate lies in your hands. However, to
ensure a fair testing ground, technical interviews are bound by the rubrics that define the
role. A question could be asked any way by the interviewer, but at the end of the day, it
must be testing the speed of the candidate fairly. That means that even while the question
changes, the rubric it corresponds to and the difficulty level of the question must remain
constant.
However, within this freedom also comes the responsibility of asking the right question to
the right candidate. Some of the best technical interview questions do a good job in
applicability because they are based on core concepts that every candidate must know. But as
the candidate’s skills start branching out into the more niche specializations, your
questions must branch out too.
For instance, the questions asked to a candidate for the position of an iOS developer are
both very similar and different from the ones asked to a web developer. The first few
questions could be purely based on algorithms, something that both candidates must be
familiar with. And the next few questions are specific to the position that the candidate
has applied for.
An iOS and a web developer could both be asked to clone a linked list with the next and
random pointers as this qualifies as a basic requirement. However, an iOS developer cannot
be asked a question such as ‘What strategy would you use to optimize a large list of items
on FlatList?’ Because that’s a question for a React Native developer.
I am sure it sounds very confusing. But it isn’t as cryptic as it sounds. To be succinct,
the technical interview is one of the most important parts of the hiring process. It may or
may not consist of multiple rounds within itself. A candidate can be asked questions that
range from algorithm coding to questions on the software they specialize in, and there are
multiple rubrics that they are evaluated on. The final marking determines their hireability.
I guess that makes the whole conundrum of the technical interview infinitely simpler.
Tools To Improve The Technical Interview Process
With the landscape of the hiring process changing every day, having backup solutions to every round is extremely important. Resumes and telephonic interviews do not need backups and hence don’t have multiple options to conduct them. However, rounds like the coding examination or the technical and HR interview process need to be flexible and open to the idea of in-person as well as virtual conduction. But how can you conduct a smooth technical interview while also evaluating the candidate all online ?
HackerRank
A coding tool you might be very familiar with would be HackerRank. Originally a coding
environment equipped with multiple challenges for programmers to test their skills on,
HackerRank now caters to technical interviews too with a single, fully functional IDE. The
IDE allows for an environment where the candidate can both work on the problem in real-time
while interacting with the interviewer.
HackerRank recently also unveiled their Virtual Onsite Experience, where candidates could
log into what is essentially a lobby, and relax till their time arrives.
CodeSignal
Codesignal is a cloud-based interview tool, and it enables you to launch remote technical
interviews with ease. The environment provided by the tool resembles Visual Studio Code a
lot and hence makes it easy for candidates with no experience with the environment to get
comfortable during the interview process. CodeSignal is quick and easy to use, and it makes
sure all your members, interviewers and others are in sync throughout the entire process.
CodeSignal hosts over 70 languages, has a Monaco powered IDE and also has a virtual
whiteboard to enable on-site ideation.
Mettl
A technical interview doesn’t just need an IDE and pair programming for virtual interaction.
It also requires tools to dynamically evaluate a candidate’s performance, and make it easier
for the interviewer to keep track of the marking of each rubric. Mettl helps us achieve
this. With options for customisation and already consisting of multiple tailored solution
maps, technical interviews are well planned and executed on Mettl.
Mettl boasts built-in simulators for objective evaluation of the determined interview
rubrics, an inbuilt whiteboard and a notepad for ideation and data analysis for previous
rounds.
CoderPad
CoderPad not only lets you evaluate and interview your candidate but also helps you screen
all your candidates from start to finish. CoderPad’s environment is very user friendly and
it supports more than 30 languages. It has note-taking abilities, makes your evaluation
process that much faster, and you can even upload your own database environments for custom
questions.
A technical interview goes best when the environment that it is conducted in is smooth,
effective and intuitive. The candidate must feel comfortable giving the interview and not
fail it because the tools used to simulate the interview are difficult to work with.