The start of the new year has seen the trend of unprecedented demand for developers continue across the tech industry. Finding qualified candidates will be the greatest challenge in 2022, according to a joint report published by CodinGame and CoderPad. The report also finds that recruiters are looking to widen their talent pools to fill key positions.
CodinGame and CoderPad polled more than 14,000 developers and tech recruiters across the globe, to compile its 5th annual Tech Hiring Survey.
The report reveals that tech recruiters have made candidate experience during the hiring process a priority in 2022, to attract the best developers in a candidate-driven market.
The report notes that remote working became the norm during the pandemic and that it is conclusively here to stay. Remote working has long since been popular within the developer community though, so it’s not a surprise that the majority of developers polled say they prefer to work away from the office.
CodinGame and CoderPad’s latest survey reveals that almost half of tech recruiters are struggling to find qualified candidates.
Although 53% of recruiters have extra budget for hiring developers, competition is fierce for the very best tech profiles, with full stack and back end engineers the hardest positions to fill.
Of the tech recruiters who responded to the survey, 35% intend to hire more than 50 developers in 2022, with 15% planning to hire over 200 developers.
Recruiters recognise they need to adapt, and many are placing widening the talent pool at the heart of their HR strategies, in order to fill a high number of tech positions.
With that in mind, more than half (57%) of those recruiters polled said they were open to ignoring the CV and base hiring decisions on live technical assessments, rather than relying simply on experience and academic qualifications.
The limitations of the resume are well documented when it comes to identifying candidates who have the necessary tech skills, but don’t have formal qualifications.
Recruiters are already hiring more developers with non-academic backgrounds than ever before. Four-in-ten (40%) recruiters polled said they regularly hire developers without a formal qualification in programming, up from 24% a year ago.
Waving goodbye to the CV would expand the tech talent pool further.
Two thirds (66%) of recruiters also believe that bias is an issue in technical recruitment, and the resume is a major contributory factor. Skills-based hiring assessment tools are proven to remove bias and embrace diversity.
Candidate experience
In a candidate-driven market, tech recruiters have pinpointed candidate experience as a top priority in 2022.
Candidate experience starts with the hiring process and traditional whiteboard ‘pen and paper’ interviews are disliked by the majority of candidates according to the report by the two tech companies.
When developers and recruiters were asked what their preferred interview format was, both sides were in agreement that they preferred live coding interviews over whiteboard interviews.
Whiteboard interviews can be problematic because they can eliminate highly qualified candidates who aren’t used to performing in front of people.
Working remotely
Over the past 18 months, remote working has become the norm. Although pandemic restrictions have lifted, and people have returned to the office, many employees still prefer to work remotely some of the time.
The report emphatically shows that remote working is favoured by developers, with seven-in-ten (70%) preferring to work remotely in 2022, while just 4% said they are keen to work in the office full-time.
Sharing his thoughts on the report, Frederic Desmoulins, co-founder & CEO of developer recruitment platform CodinGame, comments:
“Recruiters are more aware than ever that they need to adapt if they are going to find and attract the most talented tech candidates. In a candidate-driven market, recruiters need to find an edge over the competition or be left behind.
“We’re already seeing more tech recruiters widening their talent pools, and hiring developers who don’t have the traditional academic background.
“Of the developers we polled, 40% didn’t learn to code at school or university. It’s likely if they were considered using the traditional CV, they might be overlooked, when in fact they might be the most qualified person for the role.
“Too much emphasis has been placed on the resume, and companies are slowly waking up to the limitations of basing hiring decisions around it.
“In the future, we can expect to see more companies switching to skills-based hiring, and specifically live coding interviews, to enhance candidate experience, expand the tech talent pool and remove bias from the interview process.”
