Hiring developers
How to get tech hiring right
Hew Ingram
Engineering lead, Applied
hew@beapplied.com www.beapplied.com
What we’ll cover
- Brief introduction to Applied
- What makes developer hiring special?
- Optimising your developer hiring process
- Q&A
Help you find the best person for every job, regardless of their background
Use Behavioural & Data Science to remove unconscious bias from the hiring process by design
What's your role in dev hiring?
What makes dev hiring different?
What's so special about devs??
Hiring and hireable in 2013 - Agile developers
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics
4.59
Jobs per
candidate
👩💻
20%
Annual growth
📈
44%
No related academic experience
🎓
What's so special about devs??
More complex jobs means longer time to hire
Hiring and hireable in 2013 - Agile developers
> 35days
🗓
> $150k
💸
The real cost of hiring a bad developer - DevSkiller
What is most important to you in hiring?
So lets design a better system...
Quality of hire
🥇
Timely (not fast!)
⏲
Fair (resulting in a diverse team)
⚖️
Rejected candidates become ambassadors
😻
Sourcing
Sourcing
15%
Actively looking
🔭
Stack Overflow developer survey 2019
Tech Nation - D&I in UK tech
19%
Women tech workers
👩💻
49s
reading a job ad
⏱
Sourcing - Job ad
Evidence that gendered wording in job advertisements exists and sustains gender inequality - D. Gaucher, J. Friesen, A.C. Kay
Sourcing - Job ad
Sourcing - Most important job factors
Stack Overflow developer survey 2020
Sourcing - LinkedIn
Sourcing - LinkedIn
🎉 Bonus - employer brand building
Sponsor meetups and conferences
🍕
Produce interesting (and useful) content
✍️
Contribute to open source
🌎
Assesment
What skills do developers need?
What do developers actually do?
Assesment
Assesment
How many hours a day do you spend coding?
sweetcode.io
Electric Cloud
Assesment
73%
< 3 hours coding
😩
"... the ratio of time spent reading vs writing code is well over 10 to 1"
Robert C. Martin
Assesment
Debugging
Programming
Problem solving
Organisation + time management
Communication + teamwork
Self development
Assesment
The validity and utility of selection methods in personnel psychology...
Schmidt, F. L. & Hunter, J. E
Assesment - CV sift
Assesment - CV sift
Discrimination against Female Migrants wearing headscarves - Weichseldbaumer, D.
Assesment - phone screen
🤷♀️ quick(ish)
❌ filled with bias
❌ not predictive
Assesment
Assesment
The validity and utility of selection methods in personnel psychology...
Schmidt, F. L. & Hunter, J. E
Assesment - take home test
Assesment - take home test
actually testing (a) skill!
🎉
could be fair/predictive
😬
super time consuming
⏰
often bias against women and parents
😩
Assesment - take home test
Short and well defined
🔥
Use a mark scheme
🔥
Deal with existing code
🔥
Try not to be super prescriptive in language/framework
🔥
Give them a code review as feedback
🔥
Assesment - why mark schemes rock
Constructed critera: Redefining Merit to Justif Discrimination
Eric Luis Uhlmann and Geoffrey L. Cohen
Assesment - work sample questions
5 short questions
🔥
Only 1 coding question
🔥
Tests wider set of skills
🔥
Less time
🔥
Mark schemes + multiple, anonymous reviews
🔥
Assesment - interview
28%
written code test
✍️
Stack Overflow developer survey 2019
Assesment - interview
Stack Overflow developer survey 2019
15%
solved FizzBuzz
🥤
39%
wrote any code
⌨️
42%
stressful coding exams
🤯
Assesment - interview
for (var i=1; i < 101; i++){
if (i % 15 == 0) console.log("FizzBuzz");
else if (i % 3 == 0) console.log("Fizz");
else if (i % 5 == 0) console.log("Buzz");
else console.log(i);
}
Assesment - interview | pair programming
Take turns
🔥
Work on real code
🔥
Same task for all
🔥
Scoring rubric
🔥
Encourage Googling + asking questions
🔥
Assesment - interview | pair programming
Assesment - interview
"... It is not your job to catch people out or trick them!!!!"
Hew D. Ingram
Assesment - interview | behavioural
What programming languages have you used in the past?
Subjective
❌
Super broad
❌
Not predictive
❌
Assesment - interview | behavioural
How is the QA process handled at your company?
If their current company doesn't care about QA does that mean they're a bad developer?
❌
May well be completely beyond their control
❌
Assesment - interview | behavioural
Our QA process is X, what problems do you see, what would you change
Well scoped
✅
Can have clear marking critereia
✅
Accessible to all candidates
✅
Assesment - interview | behavioural
Tell me about a tough software problem and how you solved it
Tightly linked to opportunity
❌
Subjective
❌
Super broad
❌
Assesment - interview | behavioural
Do an actual tech design interview
Structured interviews
🔥
Score independently
🔥
Avoid "tell me about a time when..."
🔥
Keep questions relevant!
🔥
Focus on the skills needed
🔥
Assesment - interview | behavioural
But surely candidates hate doing all this...
"I really enjoyed filling in this application"
"This feels like a great way to get someones skill without looking at how 'experienced' they are"
But surely candidates hate doing all this...
"This was one of my favourite interview rounds ever"
"The question format is far more engaging and helps me get an idea of the role"
Top take home tips...
Check your job description
🔎
Ditch the CV
📜
Use scoring criteria as much as possible
📋
Optimise your take home test
✍️
Structured interviews only
🕴
Hiring developers
How to get tech hiring right
Hew Ingram
Engineering lead, Applied
hew@beapplied.com www.beapplied.com
Questions
Hew Ingram
Engineering lead, Applied
hew@beapplied.com www.beapplied.com
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By hewingram
