Remote work has surged drastically since 2021 with Statista reporting an increase from 20% in 2020 to 28% in 2023. This percentage has the tendency to increase even more, despite the initiatives started by some companies to return to the office on a hybrid basis.
With remote work, remote hiring has come which presents unique challenges, key ones the evaluation of developer skills. This is even more challenging with the involvement of AI support in the coding sphere. Coding tests have developed as a solution to this challenge as they provide an objective way to assess technical skills remotely.
This article will look in more depth at the role of coding tests in remote hiring, the benefits and some challenges they might be bringing to the hybrid way of work.
The Role of Coding Tests in Remote Hiring
Coding tests can be used for on-site hiring, but they are especially useful in remote settings. Why?
- Objectivity — they provide a measurable, skill-based assessment of programmers’ skills while minimizing biases.
- Scalability — the majority of platforms offer automated grading and easy scaling of tests which means that hiring specialists can administer them to a larger pool of candidates, located across different time zones.
- Efficiency — these tests reduce the time spent in lengthy interview processes for both candidate and interviewer (sometimes technical faces engaged in critical client projects can also be engaged, which is also inefficient). The tests also offer consistent results, which further streamlines the recruitment process. A report from the organization SRHM found that 85% of employers using automation of AI in recruitment, report it saves them significant time and/or increases efficiency.
Key Benefits of Coding Tests for Remote Hiring
1. Consistent Skill Evaluation
Coding tests are the one unbiased, gender-neutral evaluation tool there is. No matter the location, time zone, ethnicity, the tests offer a standardized assessment.
2. Real-World Skill Demonstration
The coding tests are developed in a real-life manner to simulate on-the-job tasks. This enables the candidates to decide whether it is their job, and the recruiters to rightfully evaluate the candidates’ problem-solving abilities, coding style, and approach.
3. Reducing Bias
Going beyond racial biases, there are also personality traits that can attract one hiring specialist and make another one skip on a candidate. With coding tests, such subjective factors are removed from the equation. The recruitment team then can focus on tangible skills needed for the job and evaluate soft skills later.
4. Efficient Screening for Large Candidate Pools
Without the aim to repeat a statement about the role of the coding tests, scalability is also a key benefit, especially in large enterprises. The tests support the hiring team to focus mainly on top performance and perform more in-depth evaluations with them and not skip a relevant candidate accidentally due to the large number of candidates.
Essential Features to Look for in Remote Coding Tests
These factors should be decided on the basis of your organization’s hiring needs, the volume of candidates, the specifics of the roles you want to fill, and the frameworks and languages you are looking for. Still, there are a few key features that can be useful for all organizations, regardless of scope:
- Customizability:
Ability to tailor tests to specific skills or roles. - Real-Time Collaboration:
Enables live coding sessions, simulating collaboration on remote teams. - Automated Grading and Reporting:
Streamlines evaluation with instant insights. - Anti-Cheating Features:
Ensures test integrity through features like plagiarism detection and proctoring.
Best Practices for Implementing Coding Tests in Remote Hiring
Once you decide on a coding test platform, you also need to choose the right approach to implement them seamlessly in your remote hiring process. Below are a few steps you can follow if you are a first-timer:
1. Define Clear Goals and Skill Requirements
Prepare the right prompts that explain what your specific needs are for the particular roles. In this way, you can avoid irrelevant assessments.
2. Create a Balanced Assessment
Explore the platform and see what types of assessments are available. Granted, you might have done your research in advance when deciding to choose the platform. If that is the case, you can easily choose the best assessments for each role. It will be best to diversify them to test both technical and soft skills and simulate at best the work environment with which the candidates will be faced. You can include a mix of problem-solving tasks and real-life scenarios for technical and analytical skills, for example.
3. Focus on Candidate Experience
It is important to factor in candidates’ experience. You probably have records of what is the average duration for tests you have given so far. You also have gathered feedback as to which task is accessible and understandable, and which needs to be re-worked. Use this data to make the coding test as user-friendly as possible to win your top candidates from the start.
4. Stay Updated on Technology Trends
Be sure to regularly update coding tests to reflect on current industry trends and technologies. This will not only enhance the accuracy of the assessments, but also show your business’ dedication to stay up to date with technological advancements.
5. Account for Technical Environment Differences
Some tools might require additional technical setups from candidates and from you as well, so you need to give clear instructions and requirements to your IT team and the candidates, so you are all on the same page.
6. Implement Anti-Cheating Measures
This is a key step, as mentioned in the few factors every organization needs to look for when choosing a platform. Some of these measures offered as features can be:
- Webcam Snapshots and Session Recording
- Location and IP Tracking
- Copy-Paste Restrictions and Randomized Questions
7. Use Data to Inform Decisions
Last, but not least — use the data that these coding tests provide to inform your hiring decisions. Why would you pay otherwise, if you base all your choices on subjective judgments? These coding tests and the platforms that offer them should be your advisors, not your bottlenecks, meaning one more tool you need to look at.
To wrap it up
Coding tests are here to stay. As mentioned, they shouldn’t just be another tool that complicates your work. If that’s the case, you have two options: either look for a different platform or abandon the idea entirely. However, if you give the platform of your choice a chance, you can see almost immediate benefits. Remote hiring can become just as effective— and even more objective — than on-site hiring. For a competitive, remote-first landscape like the present, coding tests are your go-to solutions.
In case you are still wondering whether to invest or not in such a platform, go back a step and read the benefits you can get by implementing them in your processes. Then calculate the overhead in resources and time you spend on each candidate or hiring campaign and compare that to the benefits of a coding test intermediary. Convinced now?
