Unique Ways to Evaluate Remote Developers Before Hiring Them

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The information HR managers usually gather about the remote developer’s skills is secondhand and thus the measuring of their technical aptitude is somewhat of a controversial topic. Portfolios, Resumes, and referrals can be very impressive. However, you still have to test the technical capability before you hire the next developer. One way of doing it is by looking at what the candidates are currently doing.

You can be closer to the expert and creative contender by breaking down the gamification and formalities of the interview procedure.

Here are 5 distinctive ways by which you can assess your future developers through the different stages of the hiring process.

Design a contest on your careers page

Is your Career page a run-of-the-mill application form? Does it ask the usual questions about skills and experience? How about a contest instead?  

Designing a contest where you can invite applicants to propose new products or features could have many benefits:

  • This can help you to see the applicants’ tech skills in action.
  • A design contest would be a striking way to attract developers if you place a job advert.
  • It will make sure that the candidates have the proper knowledge of your company and if they will be able to design a relevant new product or feature. By doing this you can narrow down the list of applicants very quickly.

When you begin with a tighter and more qualified group of candidates, your recruitment process also gets short.

Coding Assessments

Assessment tests will give you a rare insight into a candidate’s methods and approach. It’s this insight that will allow you to evaluate how well the person can take what they know and apply it to different situations. Make sure they are relevant to the post for which the candidate is applying. this approach will get you closer to hiring the right person for the job; someone who will stay after they are hired.

Host a virtual hackathon

Hackathons to developers are as same as social gatherings for “other” people. One of the best ways to find a remote developer is to get a group of qualified candidates to solve a problem together.

A hackathon would be a remarkable way to:

  • Get a group of unknown individuals from around the globe to team up is the very essence of remote work.
  • It is a good way to defuse difficulties that upset the developers, interview anxiety, and social awkwardness and focus on their tech skills
  • Find out which of your potential candidates is good with which part of developing
  • Test their analytical and creative skills
  • Modify the problem to fit the kind of projects your company usually handles so that you can get a perfect picture of how a potential candidate may perform in the future for your company.
  • The rules of the hackathon are like client briefs and how they understand them can further narrow the list of eligible candidates.

A hackathon is an incubator for unadulterated and raw ideas. Using it as a part of your recruitment process means you have the opportunity to work with people who can come up with new ideas and also how to execute such original ideas.

3. Cosplay as a customer

If the upcoming reiteration makes a good product, then your candidates must have the ability to create the successive prototype. Give your chosen candidates some customer feedback about your metrics, current product and an idea about the market of the product. And give them the task of prototyping the next version of the product.

This exercise can help to test a number of skills:

  • See how they evaluate the client feedback and metrics from earlier iterations of your product.
  • Know how they would rank the metrics, which ones they are going to improve, and how they are going to trade-off.
  • Find out if they can construct a rough but functional prototype in the given situation.
  • Determine how well they truly comprehend your product and what type of contributions they can actually make.

 4. Test technical marketing skills

A common goal of all businesses is to get their products to the market. A developer should have knowledge of the end-users and the product’s market.

Asking your respective candidates to create a strategy to sell your product to some other business can be a great way to:

  • See if they have the basic knowledge of both your customers’ needs and the market.
  • Figure out if they are able to talk fluently about the technical terms of your product with the intention to sell.
  • Find out if they are aware of the basics of print, digital and event marketing.

Developers don’t merely write code. They should have clarity about how the product will be used and by whom. This method is a quick and reliable way to know if your candidates are qualified. 

5. Experience a day of working at your company

For the remote teams, this may not be an option that comes into our minds straightaway.

But even a single working day in your company can help you to observe whether the candidate would be a good fit for the following reasons or not:

  • You can find out whether the candidates can keep up with you after experiencing the speed of work at your company.
  • They can see the working of your remote meetings and can be precisely asked to contribute to them.
  • They are able to work with another developer for the day and add to the real coding
  • Candidates can work together with other team members, whose estimations can help you in deciding between your best choices

 If you have ever put any significance on remote work culture, this method of evaluation is the best to finalize your candidate list.

There are also other ways to assess the skills of your developers, like writing test scenarios, mob programming, and analog gamification. But no matter which methods you use, it is very important to look at the programming skills of the developers from all the aspects.