How the Internet is Enabling New Ways to Hire – OVIA talks to Codility

Having recently been introduced to Greg from Codility, we immediately saw synergies between what we were doing in the recruitment technology space. Taking once time-consuming processes, (in our case telephone interviewing and in Greg’s case programming tests) and introducing web-based technology to make these much more efficient and consistent.

Both our teams individually came up with what is in many respects the same value proposition, though targeted at different steps of the recruitment process. It’s sign of the way the emerging recruitment landscape is changing, driven by faster and more reliable internet connections, video and increasingly mobile technology.

I caught up with Greg to get his thoughts:

1. What is Codility?

Codility is designed to test  programming skills online. The Codility platform will administer coding problems and automatically assesses solutions for correctness and scalability.

2. What sort of users are currently using the service?

Codility is an indispensable tool for anyone hiring programmers. These days it is easy to call oneself a “programmer” and tons of under-qualified candidates are lured by good salaries. Codility helps recruiters tell the chaff from the grain very early in the process, reducing the time that senior engineers need to spend on technical interviews.

3. How do you see the internet enabling new ways to hire and screen candidates? Will we see more automating of the processes that are currently done manually?

The potential is huge. The recruitment process will never be completely automated, but definitely there is a lot of potential in automating certain assessments and processes, e.g. minimum competency tests.

4. Do you think more international candidates will be hired as the technology to screen them avoids methods that were previously costly?

Absolutely. With tools like OVIA or Codility the recruiters reach much broader pool of candidates remotely, plus they can process substantially more candidates thanks to automation. You end up with a high quality short-list, which would be very costly to build using traditional methods.

5. How do you see us hiring staff in 10 years?

I don’t think that the core of the process will change dramatically. In the end you need to talk to the person who you want to hire, you need to understand the candidate. On the other hand there are huge opportunities to optimize the recruitment processes. I think that in 10 years we still will be interviewing people, but the interviews will be better planned, shorter and more meaningful. Tools and practices, yet to be developed, will ensure that most of the times there is a reasonable match between a job seeker and an employer, making the hiring process less stressful to both.