If you are on the lookout for a programmer for your company, you might be facing a bit of a challenge. You have to hire an employee with verified skills but how to know whether the candidate is the right one just by looking at their CV? In the tech world, this is simply not enough. So read on to find out what are the best methods to assess programming skills and how to know if a candidate is qualified enough and a good fit for your company.
Have a look at their portfolio
Evaluate the previous and current projects the candidate has been working on. Look if they have been working on a similar to your project, or what challenges they have faced in order to complete a successful project. It is important that your employee is going to be able to solve any problems that appear in the new role.
Search for more details at GitHub
GitHub is a kind of extension to the portfolio. You should look for the number of repositories to find out how many open source projects they have contributed to, as well as the number of contributions – the more active your candidate is, the more competent. The number of followers is also important, as it reveals their rank in the community.
Check out Stack Overflow
A look at the candidate’s StackOverflow account can help you assess their knowledge level. Developers use the website to share, learn, and answer questions so you can find out more about the candidate’s communication style and whether they are a team player.
Conduct algorithmic programming tests
These tests are a popular way to evaluate the level of expertise in a certain language or framework. Integrating this type of test sets up a seamless and modern recruitment system that will create more qualified insights into your candidates’ programming skills.
Assess further with work sample coding tests
These kinds of tests are a much better method to assess programming skills as they imitate real-life tasks and focus on solving an actual problem which can reveal a lot about the future performance of the candidate. A work sample coding test mirrors a regular working day at your company, so the candidate will have to work on a practical assignment. In the end, you can evaluate the result, and see if it is up to your expectations.
When you are interviewing several candidates, a work sample test lets you evaluate all of them over the same task, so the final decision will be unbiased and strictly performance-based.
Carry out interviews
Assess the candidate’s skills further through two types of interviews – a soft skills interview and a technical interview. This way you will be able to verify if they are a good fit for the company and be a good team member, as well as complement the results from the previously conducted tests in terms of writing code, implementation of technical solutions, and approach to challenges.
Final step: Live coding
Live coding is about evaluating even further how the candidate deals with a particular challenge they are given and what is their approach to the task. You can also learn more about their way of strategizing and how much attention they pay to the details in the task they have been assigned.
Through all these different methods to assess programming skills, you should be able to have a full grasp of a candidate’s knowledge and behavior and see how well they fit your ideal employee’s profile.
