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Ask HN: Your thoughts about online developer recruitment tools like HackerRank?

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Ask HN: Your thoughts about online developer recruitment tools like HackerRank?

#1

Post by ninadmhatre »

I recently appeared for the first time on online challenges as a first round of interview process on HackerRank, well experience was good but as i have participated in only 1 of such process, i don't have strong opinion about it. i have been part of live/shared coding interview, they seem to have hard limit as you must solve X% of challenges irrespective of how cleverly you solve the them? So not sure if that angle is even considered when judging the answer.

Just wanted to thoughts about such tools? do you think they do a good/bad job? Or is it proper approach to find the talent?

Re: Ask HN: Your thoughts about online developer recruitment tools like HackerRank?

#2

Post by eisokant »

I think HackerRank is a great platform for challenges but I personally believe it only shows a small part of your skill set. I am a developer myself but also have hired a lot of engineers in my career. I believe that looking at existing projects you've done on Github gives a much better overview of your coding style, knowledge and your ability to learn. It also exposes some of the biases I know that we have in our own company (for instance, we know that if you have a functional programming background you'll fit in much better in our code base and team, even though we don't do functional programming).

All of this said, I think HackerRank is a great place to improve your skills in solving interview challenges and algorithmic problems.

Disclosure: I am a co-founder at source{d} where we analyse all git based projects to understand developers through their code.

Re: Ask HN: Your thoughts about online developer recruitment tools like HackerRank?

#3

Post by onion2k »

In my opinion they test the wrong things for the majority of software developers. Most people who write code don't need the ability to solve especially hard algorithmic problems. Ranking solutions to hard problems is probably useful if you're Google but there aren't many Googles out there. We like to think that we're solving hard problems (and actually, on HN, we're more likely to be), but most companies aren't. A large amount of software is literally just a CRUD form and a database.

For the overwhelming majority of software businesses it's far more useful to know if someone is disciplined enough to use good variable names than whether they can write an algorithm to count the number of edges in an acyclic graph.

Re: Ask HN: Your thoughts about online developer recruitment tools like HackerRank?

#4

Post by jk563 »

onion2k wrote: post #3

In my opinion they test the wrong things for the majority of software developers. Most people who write code don't need the ability to solve especially hard algorithmic problems. Ranking solutions to hard problems is probably useful if you're Google but there aren't many Googles out there. We like to think that we're solving hard problems (and actually, on HN, we're more likely to be), but most companies aren't. A la…

This is how I prefer to use it as a tool. Rather than set up difficult questions and test some algorithm that can be found with a decent google, set up a small number of relatively straightforward challenges.

This then filters out anyone who just can't code, and you can review the passing tests for craftsmanship.

Re: Ask HN: Your thoughts about online developer recruitment tools like HackerRank?

#6

Post by planetjones »

onion2k wrote: post #3

In my opinion they test the wrong things for the majority of software developers. Most people who write code don't need the ability to solve especially hard algorithmic problems. Ranking solutions to hard problems is probably useful if you're Google but there aren't many Googles out there. We like to think that we're solving hard problems (and actually, on HN, we're more likely to be), but most companies aren't. A la…

A clean code testing tool would be far more advantageous. I understand the algorithmic challenges for a small percentage of jobs which need someone like that. However, most software development is about understanding needs, simplifying process and expressing yourself cleanly in the code. I wonder how much money is being wasted, especially in silicon valley, on bad hiring - i.e. the astronomical cost "mr complex algorithm" will cause to a codebase which would benefit from being simple.

Re: Ask HN: Your thoughts about online developer recruitment tools like HackerRank?

#7

Post by planetjones »

eisokant wrote: post #2

I think HackerRank is a great platform for challenges but I personally believe it only shows a small part of your skill set. I am a developer myself but also have hired a lot of engineers in my career. I believe that looking at existing projects you've done on Github gives a much better overview of your coding style, knowledge and your ability to learn. It also exposes some of the biases I know that we have in our ow…

From experience it's very hard to know how a candidate will perform when hired, irrespective of the hiring process.

A better recruiting model IMO would be to recruit people on short-term contracts (e.g. 6 months) with the contractual agreement that the worker will transition to a permanent job at the end of the 6 months providing their performance is inline with expectation.

I do use code exercises myself, but it's not some n queens problem or something - which tests nothing practical (for the positions in my team anyhow). Rather it's a simple problem, where I look for their ability to test drive code and clean code. The candidate then doesn't get pressured as they might in a live situation. If the code is good we walkthrough it in person.

Re: Ask HN: Your thoughts about online developer recruitment tools like HackerRank?

#8

Post by kbuck »

asymmetric wrote: post #5

I didn't know about HackerRank. The concept seems quite similar to Stockfighter. Any idea how it compares?

HackerRank's core product is a tool that companies can use to send programming tests to potential candidates. It's typically used to screen candidates prior to an interview.

The Stockfighter-like concept is newer for them; it seems like they're also trying to work the pipeline from the other direction as well (i.e. finding good candidates for companies, instead of just testing candidates that have already applied for a position).

Re: Ask HN: Your thoughts about online developer recruitment tools like HackerRank?

#9

Post by blablablame »

I've been asked to do a few of these a while ago while searching for a job. Don't remember if I did HackerRank though.

I don't really like it. I scored well in most that I did, but as some folks mentioned, they either test the wrong things, or have horrible UI's.

Also, there are some that end up having multiple choice answers that are really badly done (bad question syntax, having 2 correct answers, outdated questions, etc).

I personally refuse to do any of them nowadays, even if I am really interested in the company. I just can't justify the time and (in case of badly done) frustration so companies can' save a bit of time.

Re: Ask HN: Your thoughts about online developer recruitment tools like HackerRank?

#10

Post by akurilin »

onion2k wrote: post #3

In my opinion they test the wrong things for the majority of software developers. Most people who write code don't need the ability to solve especially hard algorithmic problems. Ranking solutions to hard problems is probably useful if you're Google but there aren't many Googles out there. We like to think that we're solving hard problems (and actually, on HN, we're more likely to be), but most companies aren't. A la…

Agreed. I'm generally much more interested in whether a developer can understand a new problem they haven't faced before, can research possible solution, can compare various trade-offs of solving them and can then implement a solution efficiently and effectively on a constrained time schedule.
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