Here are the five best ways for recruiters to check developers’ coding skills during a hiring process:

Delve into their programmer portfolio

A programmer portfolio comes in different formats, ranging from single web pages to complex software projects. Any developer should have one as it allows them to showcase their coding skills through personal projects. Portfolios are useful in the recruitment process because they show candidates’ development level, their career goals and the skills they wish to acquire. It is also a way to examine a candidate’s ability to explain and present their projects – good communication skills are always a prerequisite, in any software developer role.

Lastly, examining a candidate’s portfolio helps recruiters formulate practical questions to use during the hiring process, thus serving as a basis for the interview.

Explore their GitHub account

GitHub is an online platform where developers work on open source projects and can contribute to others’. For developers, the main reason why having an account can be interesting is to show that they can write intelligible and maintainable code that coding pears can easily comprehend and work on.

As for recruiters, they can use GitHub to check candidates’ reputation by identifying their number of followers; their experience level by looking at the date the candidates joined the platform; their technical skills or areas of interest by detecting their use of keywords for languages and technologies ; their ongoing and/or finished projects ; their level of commitment through the public activity on the site.

Inquire about how they use Stack Overflow

Stack Overflow is a question and answer site addressing all topics related to computer programming. Developers rely a lot on this collaborative platform because it offers an abundance of information on how to solve various programming problems. Stack Overflow is a perfect tool for recruiters to measure candidates’ knowledge level, their degree of involvement in the development community and their reputation.

It should be noted that reputation rate is all the more objective since it has been granted by peers.

Turn to live coding interviews

Live coding interviews are considered as one of the hardest and most stressful challenges developers experience during a hiring process. However, live programming tests are a great source of information for recruiters because these trials allow to examine a candidate’s logic, their ability to explain their thoughts, their actions all the while testing their ability to code under pressure.

Not only do they allow interviewees to detect their level of knowledge and performance, but live coding assess’ a developer’s communicative and collaborative skills within a team - in the case of collect interviews.

Administer programming tests

A coding test is an efficient approach to screen developers before hiring them: it is a perfect tool to identify and hire proficient developers. Candidates code while facing real, practical problems that they could encounter in a company, allowing recruiters to analyse their technical skills almost instantly.

Tech recruiters or HR managers can organise these programming tests using online platforms that automatically evaluate a candidate’s coding skills. Once the test completed, a report materialises and it allows recruiters to study, compare and shortlist candidates.

Programming tests reduce recruitment costs and save time on technical interviews. They also provide for an improved candidate experience, giving developers a chance to demonstrate their skills in a tech-friendly environment.