Employers who once focused on finding software development talent from top universities are now hiring developers who learned the trade from coding bootcamps, junior colleges, and online resources, technical recruiter HackerRank says.
Category: Press
BNY Mellon Partners with HackerRank to Boost FinTech Innovation with Skills-Based Hiring
BNY Mellon is using HackerRank skill assessments to hire developers faster
Skills-Based Hiring Can Narrow the Tech Talent Gap
This article was originally published on SHRM.org blog.
Recruiters are adopting data-driven practices and tools to find skilled candidates, relying less on methods like poring over resumes and following their gut instincts.
The tech industry especially bemoans a lack of qualified job seekers to fill its expanding ranks, but some say part of the problem lies in the traditional hiring process, rigid job qualifications and restricted searches. Tech firms tend to hire from top-name schools or competitors, a practice that overlooks talented programmers who lack that pedigree, according to HackerRank CEO Vivek Ravisankar.
HackerRank, which develops computer programming testing and a ranking system for tech professionals, and companies like it are interjecting coding challenges into the typical hiring process, which relies on resume screens instead of skills challenges as a gate to an initial interview.
HackerRank claims 1 million users globally, is free for job seekers and collects fees from employers. Programmers are scored on the accuracy of their solutions to programming challenges and ranked globally on a leaderboard. Employers can set up specific challenges related to jobs they want to fill.
Ravisankar sat down with SHRM Online at the Talent Acquisition Tech Conference in Austin, Texas, in November.
SHRM Online: HackerRank was founded in 2012. How did it come about?
Ravisankar: I was a developer at Amazon and my university colleague Hari Karunanidhi was an engineer at IBM. There was a general sentiment in the developer community that the rounds of interviews we experienced were not the most effective use of time. A resume is a poor indicator of how good a programmer is.
We figured that’s the reason it took so long for programmers to move through the hiring process. But if you could figure out a prospective candidate’s abilities before the interview, that would have a better impact on the interview process.
That got us thinking. We wanted to solve the problem of better matching developers and companies. After a couple of failed attempts to solve the problem, we launched HackerRank. As developers started using it, we expanded our idea. This doesn’t just have to be a screening product but can be used to build a talent community from which employers can start to engage with and source from as well.
SHRM Online: What’s next for the company?
Ravisankar: We have evolved to automatically matching candidates to companies using machine learning techniques. That’s a huge shift. If you go to a company and ask, “What kind of developers are you looking for?” you will probably get a generic answer, something like “Somebody really smart and who is a hard worker.”
We are quantifying what that really means. I think we’re in the middle of a shift to skills-based hiring. Our goal is to continually write a better matching algorithm.
SHRM Online: You’ve said that the skills gap in tech is a myth. How so?
Ravisankar: Employers are applying very restrictive parameters, and the amount of hidden talent is way higher than what people imagine. If most tech companies apply the same filters—that candidates should have graduated from Stanford or Berkeley and worked at Facebook or Google—clearly the sample size will be limited. One factor is location. Another is background.
VMware [a cloud and virtualization software and service company] recently hired a person who was working as a dishwasher.There’s no way his resume would have passed the tech recruiter’s review. The only reason he got so far was that he took a HackerRank challenge, scored above the cut-off and got the attention of the company. Resumes are used as a proxy for showcasing skills.
A resume doesn’t tell you anything. If you want to have a job as a reporter, the first thing they will ask you for are your clips. But for developers, it’s hard to show the code you’ve been working on from a previous company because of proprietary reasons.
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Bloomberg: Wall Street’s Frantic Push to Hire Coders
For almost five years, Gregory Furlong worked 50-hour weeks as a shipping clerk at a Best Buy two miles from his childhood home in Wilmington, Delaware. It was a kind of employment purgatory for a computer obsessive who tinkers with motherboards in his free time.
Huffington Post: The Story Behind HackerRank And Its Mission To Help Programmers Across The Globe
Software engineers are highly sought by almost every company nowadays as companies try to keep up with the developments of technology. These companies have HR teams dedicated to hiring the best software engineers out there in terms of both skill and fit. However, resumes and phone interviews can only give companies so much information. A big question recruiters and interviewers asks themselves is, “how do I really know if this engineer is right for the job?”
This is where HackerRank CEO Vivek Ravisankar and his co-founder and CTO Hari Karunanidh saw a gap that he could fill—finding a way to better evaluate the programming skills of engineers. This led to the creation of HackerRank, a platform where developers can prove their chops by solving code challenges and companies can hire technical people based on proven skill.
White House to Host ‘Hackathon’ to Help Get Workers Into Tech Jobs
SF Business Times: HackerRank Helps Software Engineers Hone their Skills Onwards and Upwards
Vivek Ravisankar came to the United States from India with a background in engineering and went through his share of interviews before he landed at Amazon.
TechCrunch: Microsoft and HackerRank bring executable code snippets to Bing’s search results pages
Sooner or later, every programmer ends up searching for code snippets and algorithms.
Forbes: What Startup CEOs Want In A CFO
Last week, I spoke with Mike Asher, CFO of HackerRank about the challenges he faces as CFO of a startup. In many ways, startups arechanging the rules of business, and there’s been a lot writtenrecently about when a startup should hire a CFO. After speaking with Mike, I also connected with HackerRank’s CEO Vivek Ravisankar to learn more about how he came to this decision, and his expectations for the CFO and finance department.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Jeff Thomson: Many startups have a difficult time determining when to hire a CFO. As cofounder and CEO of HackerRank, when and why did you decide it was time to add a CFO to your leadership team?
Vivek Ravisankar: In Software as a Service (SaaS) businesses, you can increase the odds of success by ensuring you have strong unit economics in the business to scale. We’ve been gaining traction and building a solid market presence by expanding from niche technology companies to more mainstream industries, like finance, healthcare and travel. We have a huge opportunity in front of us and great momentum. A CFO like Mike Asher, who comes with significant experience in strategizing for long-term sustainability, can really help us scale.
Forbes: How HackerRank CFO Mike Asher Leads Startups to Success
According to reports, 90% of startups fail. That’s a staggering figure. Unsurprisingly, it has a profoundly negative impact on the economy. As CFO, you’re intimately familiar with the financial realities your organization faces, and uniquely positioned within the C-suite to ensure your company – whether a startup or established corporation – succeeds.
Over the course of this column, I’ve connected with several CFOs working in startup environments, including CallFire CFO Tridivesh Kidambi in Why A Startup CFO Is Like A Personal Trainer and Code42CFO Jason Bristow in Making The Leap From Established Corporation To Growing Company. For a new perspective into the role and responsibilities of a startup CFO, I spoke with Mike Asher, who joinedHackerRank as CFO last month.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Jeff Thomson: You joined HackerRank as its first CFO in February. After working as CFO at a number of other companies, how has your experience as an inaugural CFO differed from your past roles?
Mike Asher: I’ve been a CFO of technology companies, ranging from small startups to established market leaders, for over 15 years. As an inaugural CFO, there are often pieces of the process and strategy that are missing, but the good news is there is usually less to re-do, as the company hasn’t had enough time to develop truly bad habits.
Thomson: Are the skills required of startup CFOs different from the skills expected in more established organizations? If so, how should CFOs acquire these skills?
Asher: A startup CFO needs to wear many hats and be creative (creative solutions to problems, not creative with the accounting). While there are similarities across companies, including markets and products, each startup has a unique footprint.
A big part of my job is to develop a deep understanding of these challenges, and figure out where to prioritize and invest versus areas that are nice-to-have, but not critical. There will never be enough people to do everything, but I am helping solve a multifaceted, challenging, high-stakes puzzle, which keeps my job fresh and fun.
Thomson: Before joining finance, you started your career as a software manager. What inspired you to shift your focus and how has your software experience informed your roles within the finance department?
Asher: Yes, I started as a programmer and software manager, but went back to business school and shifted into finance. I do believe if I had founded a startup early in my career as a programmer, I may still be doing that today. As the head of finance at tech companies, it helps that I have a good understanding of the inner workings of software development and I have a unique perspective on the value of our engineers.
Thomson: It’s been reported that 90% of startups fail. In your experience, what makes the difference between a successful startup and a failed experiment, and how can the CFO and finance team ensure their organizations don’t become part of the dreaded 90 percent?
Asher: There needs to be good foundational components in place for the startup to be successful. For instance, a big market and a product that legitimately works are crucial. If there is a solid foundation, then success is mostly dependent on strategy and execution, which are areas in which I have deep experience and enjoy. With my background, I can then quickly pattern-match against prior startups to avoid common mistakes and play to HackerRank’s strengths, so we are successful in the long-term.
Thomson: As you know, it’s important for the finance team to work with business units across the organization to drive growth. However, is there one relationship (whether with an individual or department) you believe to be most important for the CFO to foster in order to create value?
Asher: I work very closely with the field organization in every company I join. Everything is a hypothesis and wishful thinking until we can successfully sell the product and encourage customer adoption. In the field organization, the proof points and metrics are very clear, and I get great, candid feedback from our employees who are working daily with the customers, which helps me generate value.
This article originally appeared in Forbes.
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