Skills-based hiring is a proven recruitment method that helps businesses find the talent that takes their teams to the next level. That’s why technical assessments are one of the most common ways tech teams assess potential candidates during the hiring process.
However, a fair portion of developers dislike technical questions unrelated to the role they’re hiring for (28%) or just technical assessments in general (23%). With that in mind, it’s more important than ever to balance skills vetting and an excellent candidate experience if you want to snag top talent for your team.
In a recent panel discussion, OfferZen’s Robyn Luyt (Head of product marketing), Estine Cook (Senior Account Manager), Jamie Philander (Talent Advisor) and Barbara Fourie (Product Manager) shared skills-based hiring best practices hiring managers can implement to identify and hire developers.
Know what you need and communicate it clearly
Before you can get started with skills-based assessments, you need to ensure that you’re attracting the best applications. The OfferZen team highlighted that this makes the initial stages of the hiring process just as important as those later on.
Identify skill gaps in your team
It’s important to understand what skills your team needs so that you’re able to prioritise hiring the right talent and reduce the chances of attrition down the line.
“Rushing into hiring without a clear understanding of what you need is a recipe for failure. You need to evaluate what your team can do well and highlight areas where you need additional expertise,” said Estine.
Once you’ve identified skill gaps, it’s easier to write an effective job description that captures candidates’ attention and also clearly outlines what will be required from them and what you’re offering.
“The job description is usually what attracts candidates, so you want to make sure that you attract the right people and set clear expectations of what’s actually required from the candidate and what the company can offer them,” added Estine.
Focus on the essential skills
Jamie, a Tech Talent Advisor who works closely with candidates throughout the recruitment process, noted that while a job description should be detailed, it should also be relevant to the role you’re trying to fill.
“I’ve seen far too often that candidates are put off by job descriptions that have long lists of required or must-have skills because they haven’t used certain languages or technologies in a professional capacity. But they’re quick learners and they’re eager to learn,” she said.
“If you do have this long list of skills and you’re not clear about what you’re looking for, you’re disadvantaging yourself. So, it’s really important to get very specific and figure out what a candidate actually needs to be able to do the role and what can be learned on the job.”
Estine provided three best practices for writing a top job description:
- Include a clear job title: “A straightforward, clear job title lets candidates know what the role is so that they can quickly determine if the position aligns with their skills and experience.”
- **Outline key responsibilities: **“Clearly define primary tasks that the candidate will be doing and the skills they’ll need – but keep this to two or three must-have skills.”
- **Use inclusive language: **“Inclusive language ensures that you appeal to a more diverse pool of candidates.”
Align your evaluations with your expectations
Hiring is an expensive and stressful process. To avoid hiring the wrong person for the job or creating a negative candidate experience, it’s important to have a well-thought-out strategy for skills-based assessments.
Be intentional about assessments
There are many different types of skills-based interviews that you can leverage to find the right fit for your team. Technical assessments, behavioural interviews and case interviews all give candidates a chance to showcase their problem-solving abilities and technical knowledge.
The method you choose will depend on the skills you’re trying to assess. Here, it’s important to ensure that the skills you’re trying to evaluate are actually tested. Otherwise, you might hurt the candidate experience.
“I’ve seen quite a few examples of this,” said Jamie. “I’ll chat about one candidate – let’s call him Mike. He went through a three-week-long interview process that involved multiple interviews followed by a technical interview and technical assessment.
“Speaking to him throughout the process, he felt that all of these interviews and assessments were really generic. They didn’t really give him a good sense of what exactly the role would be about. At the end, when he got the offer, he still didn’t understand what his responsibilities would be, what the company’s expectations were and whether he was actually a good fit.”
Simulate the real experience
Simulation days are a great way to avoid this and show potential hires exactly what it would be like to be a part of your team.
“It’s important for the company to sell itself, but it’s also important for the candidate to get a good idea of what they’ll be doing on a daily basis,” said Barbara, an OfferZen Growth Product Manager who often runs internal simulation days.
“What we do during simulation days is provide a scenario from a real business challenge and explore that to try and find a possible solution. There could be a peer coding aspect, there might be a question and answer section to get additional information and build more context.”
According to Barbara, adding a simulation day to your interview process after the initial screening and technical assessment can give you the insight you need to make the best hire and ensure that they’ll be able to “ramp up quickly” in their role.
“It lets the candidate spend time with their potential team and work with that team on a problem like the ones they’d actually have to solve if they were hired. They get a really good idea of the company culture and business context, and the company gets a much broader picture of the candidate, including critical soft skills,” she added.
Jamie noted that by giving candidates a peek into a “day in the life” at a company, simulation days can add huge value for potential hires and make for a great candidate experience.
“A lot of the candidates I chat with say that the company needs to be a good fit in terms of culture and the way of working, but it’s really difficult to evaluate this just from the interview process. A simulation day gives them more insight into what the company is about and what the role is about, and that makes for a really good candidate experience,” she said.
Keep candidates in the loop
Although it requires a little more time investment from candidates, a skills-based hiring process that incorporates a simulation day can help to reduce time to hire and minimise the chances of attrition down the line.
“You’ll improve your hiring accuracy and streamline your recruitment process because you’ll be able to better assess candidates,” said Estine.
As important as skills-based assessments are, it’s important to remember that one of the strongest predictors of a great candidate experience is having a well-defined interview process. This makes it essential for hiring teams to define the recruitment journey and let the potential hire know exactly what they should expect throughout.