The Ultimate Cheat Sheet On Remote Coding Interviews

A resume is the first thing that recruiters interact with while hiring a candidate. To determine whether the candidate is worth calling and has the right skills that cater to your organization’s needs, here are some of the signs of a solid resume you must focus on:

• Relevant And Sufficient Details: Looking at an extra wordy resume is a waste of time. Instead, look for the complete description of the candidate’s previous experience and skills he or she has gained over the years.
• Constant Advancement: The candidate should be eager to grow in their career development by learning new tools and technologies. Additionally, continuous improvement into higher roles indicates a candidate is ready to take on new responsibilities.
• Targeted Information: Savvy job seekers show that they recognize your organization’s requirements. The reference points from the job posting or outside research explain how their skills can benefit the business.
• Clean Content: A resume is free of grammatical mistakes. A clear, well-organized document is a sign of professionalism.

Red flags to watch out for:

• Confusion: View with misgiving phrases such as familiar with, knowledge of, or experienced in. These words can mean that the candidate may not have the experience he or she claims in the resume.
• Short Tenures: A series of short stints of a job can signify a job hopper or problematic employee.
• Unprofessional Email Address: An email address is the last thing you must consider, but a silly or unprofessional address may hint at someone who’s not serious about their career.

A remote coding interview is your best opportunity to identify whether a candidate is a right fit for your organization or not. Here are five coding interview questions you must ask potential candidates.

• How do you stay up-to-date with the latest technology advancements? – Such types of questions will help you assess how well a candidate stay-up-to-date with new technologies. It will also help you determine the technical skills of the candidate.
• What’s your preferred programming language and why? - It will help you understand the candidate’s preferred programming languages and how experienced they are in their chosen language.
• What interests you about this job, and what skills can you bring to it? - The answer to this question shows how interested the applicant is in the position and how well prepared she is for the interview. Skilled candidates should be able to correlate their skills with specific job requirements.
• How do you think further technological advances will affect your job? - Here, candidates must discuss the automation tools they use or the challenges of working with machine learning and big data – if the role is for a data scientist. They may also discuss AI projects they expect to work on in your organization.
  
• What skills are most essential for a developer? - A question like this will reveal how a candidate feels about the position and what changes they can bring. For example, some candidates will talk about their educational qualifications, whereas some might speak about time management skills, problem-solving skills, communication skills, etc.

As remote hiring has become the new norm in the corporate world, every business has shifted towards a candidate-driven approach to build a positive employer brand. However, as a recruiter, you must also focus on enhancing candidate experience in a remote coding interview. Here’s how you can:

• Use An Easy-to-use Tool To Conduct Interviews: In remote coding interviews, using an easy-to-use tool is the right approach towards improving a candidate's experience. Using a complicated tool can impact the candidate experience. The tools which are simple and easy to use are HackerRank, HackerEarth, codesubmit, etc.
• Provide Resources To Candidates To Help Them Prepare For Their Coding Interview: More than 70% of candidates are unfamiliar with remote interviews. Therefore, it is essential to share some resources and help them put their best side forward. Also, you must communicate the requirements for remote interviews such as a laptop, webcam, mic, good internet, what to wear, what kind of questions can be asked, etc.
• Introduce Your Work Culture With Branded Content: In remote interviews, you won’t be able to meet the candidate in person. So to introduce candidates to your company’s culture and values, send them branded content. Some assets you should keep on hand include company articles, employee profiles that highlight members from the team you’re hiring for, a list of hiring manager’s candidate team expectations, and video and photos from your latest talent branding campaigns.
• Give Feedback Quickly: Most candidates complain that ‘we didn’t get any feedback from the company after the interview.’ Unfortunately, no one will wait for weeks and months for your reply, and potential candidates will grab some other opportunities. To improve candidate experience, provide the interview feedback as soon as possible.

As a recruiter, when you have an excellent knowledge of recruiting tech candidates, your confidence level increases. With the tips mentioned above, you can build trust with your candidates without any ease.

Additionally, you need to keep re-assessing your existing hiring process to introduce new trends in the market.