When it comes to evaluating the technical capability of remote web developers, human resources managers often rely on secondhand information, which can be unreliable. It is therefore advisable for applicants to provide impressive references, resumes, and portfolios to support their application. However, it is equally important to verify their skills before offering them a job. At Works, we carry out a thorough investigation into applicants’ current activities and select from a pool of skilled programmers who are currently in the workforce. If you are seeking such opportunities, feel free to contact us at your earliest convenience.
For job seekers, showcasing their coding proficiency in front of potential employers can be a nerve-wracking experience. Unfortunately, this could result in a skilled developer being disregarded due to their fear of public speaking.
To accurately evaluate the skills of potential candidates, it is advisable to assess them in their natural working environment. In order to attract and interview the most innovative and skilled applicants, it is essential to create a process that is more like a game rather than a formal interview.
Guidelines for Evaluating Remote Workers
Outlined below are five unique methods for evaluating potential remote web developers.
1. Conduct a Design Contest for your Job Portal
Our Career page features a standard application form that includes relevant questions about experience and qualifications. Alternatively, we can also offer a competition-based assessment. Please inform us of your preference.
Organizing a competition where participants are tasked with devising a new product or feature can offer several potential benefits:
- Right from the start, you can assess the candidates’ technological expertise.
- Hosting a design contest is a creative way to attract developers to your job listings.
- It is a great way to confirm that potential candidates have a deep understanding of your company and can apply that knowledge to develop innovative products or features.
- It enables a rapid screening of potential candidates.
Limiting the pool of applicants to a smaller, more qualified group can lead to a shorter recruitment process.
2. Arrange a virtual hackathon.
Participating in hackathons can be an enjoyable experience for developers, much like social gatherings are for others. They also provide an opportunity to identify potential remote developers by having a group of interested individuals collaborate on a challenge.
Hosting a hackathon would be an excellent way to:
- The essence of remote work involves bringing together individuals from various parts of the world who may not know each other to work collaboratively.
- An effective way to assist developers in overcoming obstacles such as shyness and job interview anxiety, thereby allowing them to focus on their core strength: coding.
- Identify which area of development your potential candidates excel in to make informed hiring decisions.
- Determine the level of creativity and analytical skills possessed by the candidates.
- Designing a challenge that aligns with your company’s typical projects can be advantageous in evaluating a candidate’s potential performance in the role. This approach can provide you with a more informed assessment of the individual’s ability to take on the position.
- In a hackathon, the rules serve as the client’s specifications, and the participants’ interpretations of those rules can further narrow down the pool of potential candidates for the challenge.
Hackathons offer a priceless opportunity for fostering innovative and creative thinking. Even rough ideas are welcome and encouraged, as this enables the team to explore unconventional concepts. For companies seeking individuals with distinctive and inventive mindsets, integrating hackathons into their hiring process can be a highly effective way to spot top talent.
3. Consider Cosplayers as Prospective Buyers
A costume is unnecessary.
Candidates should have the requisite competencies to develop the next prototype, enabling successful incremental enhancements to the product. Equipping candidates with customer feedback on the current product, as well as key performance indicators (KPIs) and a brief on the product’s current market standing, would be helpful. Additionally, they should be requested to devise a prototype for the upcoming iteration of the product.
This approach can be utilised to assess various abilities:
- Determine how they assess the data and customer feedback obtained from earlier versions of your product.
- Ascertain which metrics they would prioritise, which ones they would maximise, and which ones they would compromise on.
- Evaluate their ability to quickly create a basic yet functional prototype in the field.
- Convince you of their proficiency and potential contributions by showcasing their understanding of your product.
If you believe that your product should be advantageous to its users, you must confirm that the team building it can identify with those who will be using it. This can help you ascertain whether a potential employee possesses a distinct set of skills that are not typically found in other developers.
4. Assess Your Technical Marketing Aptitude
Regardless of the industry, every business shares the same ultimate objective: to effectively market and sell its products to consumers. For a software developer, comprehending their target audience is crucial to creating efficient solutions that fulfil their customers’ requirements.
Encouraging your remote employees to develop a strategy for persuading another firm to purchase your product is a great way to:
- Evaluate whether they possess a solid comprehension of the market as well as the needs and desires of your target audience.
- Analyse their sales-oriented, technical jargon-free product discourse to assess whether it’s ready for market.
- Confirm their knowledge of traditional, modern, and current event marketing.
Developers perform various tasks beyond coding to achieve a successful product. One of these tasks entails comprehending the intended audience and use case of the product. Evaluating the competence of a remote developer in this area can be accomplished by utilising a particular method.
5. Experience a Day in the Life of an Employee in Your Organisation
While this is not an unprecedented practice, it may not be the most obvious consideration for remote teams.
We can evaluate a candidate’s suitability for a position even if they’ve never visited our company location by endeavouring to recreate a day in their shoes. This strategy could offer a variety of benefits.
- Prospective employees can obtain an understanding of what working with our organisation entails, enabling them to assess if they can keep up with the pace of our operations. We, on the other hand, can assess if they are a good fit for our team.
- Your remote attendees can observe a standard meeting and be invited to participate when required.
- They have the option to spend the day with another developer and contribute significantly to the project.
- Applicants have the chance to interact with the remainder of the team, whose viewpoints might assist in making the final decision.
If you’ve contemplated remote work culture, examining applicants in this manner is worth considering when narrowing your candidate pool.
Conclusions on Evaluating Remote Developers
When evaluating remote developers, it’s crucial to use various methods such as gamification, mob programming, and scenario-based testing. It’s necessary to assess a developer’s programming skills from multiple perspectives beyond their code. Analogue gamification enables scrutiny of a developer’s problem-solving abilities, mob programming evaluates their ability to collaborate and coordinate, and scenario-based testing provides insight into their approach to and resolution of complex challenges. Taking a multi-dimensional approach to evaluating a developer’s skills is critical since it results in a more comprehensive understanding of their capabilities.
Consequently, evaluating a programmer solely based on their code test scores is not always wise. Instead, it is ideal to use the previously mentioned techniques for a more comprehensive assessment of a developer’s technical skills. Nonetheless, the most effective approach for evaluating remote employees may depend on the position they are seeking and the goals of the organisation.
Establishing a method for evaluating remote software developers can consume a significant amount of time. That’s why, for over a decade, organisations worldwide have relied on us to help them recruit and onboard remote software engineers within a two-month timeframe.
