Technical interviews are an essential part of the hiring process for many companies. They help to ensure that candidates have the skills and knowledge for the position. Unfortunately, technical interviews can also be exceptionally time-consuming and difficult to create. Technical interviews also rarely represent candidates with different backgrounds. To ensure that the technical interview represents all talents and abilities efficiently and fairly, utilize data-driven recruiting technology. This post will look at tips to remove pitfalls like bias from your interviews.

Remove Bias From The Hiring Process With a Technical Interview 

Having bias in the hiring process can be detrimental to the company and the process itself. Multiple industries consider bias a ‘pitfall’ in the hiring process because of its ability to discredit qualified applicants based on false premises. Technical interviews must ensure that all applicants have an equal opportunity to thrive despite pedigree. 

The best way to remove bias from the hiring process is to replace screening calls and first-round interviews with a short take-home assessment. Take-home tests are important for weeding out candidates without including bias. These tests can determine unique skill sets that recruitment teams do not have time to fully assess for each applicant. Recruitment teams ask for these assessments when the applicant submits a resume that shows promise. This does not require scheduling or time out of the recruitment team’s schedule. Applicants do these tests at home on their time. 

Creating the Technical Interview Take-Home Test

When creating a technical interview take-home test, it’s important to plan the questions. Artificial intelligence (AI) resume screening can help recruiters determine what questions need to be asked on the take-home test. After scanning every applicant's resume (in a fraction of the time it would take for a human to), these intelligent units compile a list of the skill sets present in each candidate. These skill set lists can help determine what type of questions the candidates could easily navigate and which ones they would not. It’s important to get many questions that cover all skill levels.

The questions on the technical interview take-home test should vary. Types of questions you can include in your take-home test:

• Multiple-choice questions assess vocabulary-based questions and the process of elimination skills.
• Multiple answer questions assess the applicant's understanding that the same problem can have multiple solutions and what solutions are possible.
• Recorded answers (short and long response questions) allow candidates to expand their thought processes and showcase their confidence, communication skills, and technical knowledge. These also help guarantee the identity of the person taking the assessment.
• Code snippet questions differ based on the position. It’s important to utilize multiple questions of various written styles to assess different skills. The programming language for the code snippet questions will differ based on the position. If the position is of a web designer, it would be best to use JavaScript, HTML, and CSS as the main languages for the questions. If the position were for a system administrator, using bash-based code-snippet questions focused on active directory automation would be best. 

Here are a few more positions and questions that interviews could likely ask for the code snippet questions:

1. Entry Level Software Developer: “Fix the syntax of this slice of code, so then the widget button sends users to the next page when clicked on.” 
2. Full Stack Developer: “In this PHP snippet, ask the user to enter a username, password, and email, then verify the email and username have not been used before.”
3. Database Administrator: “In SQL, write the commands necessary (after selecting the database ‘school’) that will produce all the given ‘students’ with age equal to ‘10’ who have ‘tanner’ as their teacher.” 

These questions must also be realistic based on application questions that your currently employed team will have to navigate throughout their employment. This will allow candidates to determine whether this is a position they would be interested in taking if given the option. It also allows recruiters to assess them accurately based on the qualifications of the specific position at the company that they are interviewing for. This will not only provide for better hiring decisions, but in the long run, it will also help decrease employee turnover rates.

Utilize Data-Drive Recruiting Technology For Take-Home Tests

When providing a technical interview, it’s important to utilize data-driven recruiting technology and techniques that can help with the timing and thoroughness of the interviews. 

With the technical interview take-home test, automatic grading is a must. If fifty candidates submit results and it takes an hour to grade each, that is over forty hours a week (more than the average work week). Automatic grading can submit results as soon as the candidate submits the test. These results can provide the recruitment team with the necessary information to fasten the pace of the selection process.

Proctoring is also an important factor when giving candidates technical interviews. For a take-home test, candidates should be required to give the platform access to their microphone and video to guarantee the absence of cheating. This will also help when asking candidates to submit recorded answers, as the testing platform already has access to their cameras. 

Proctoring helps with identity verification as well. Before moving forward, interviewers should have each candidate submit their profiles on other platforms that require this verification. These platforms include:

• LinkedIn
• GitHub
• And more…

With data-driven recruiting technology, these platforms can then have their information synced to verify the candidate performing the interview is the same in these profiles. 

Recruiting Built For You: Filtered

A technical interview take-home test with data-driven recruiting technology allows your company to verify a candidate’s skills and qualifications while removing bias and supporting diversity initiatives. Candidates can easily do the assessment online, making them more convenient for both the candidates taking them and employers who need the results. As a result, using take-home assessments can simplify your hiring process and help you stay competitive in filling technical roles. Filtered can help your recruiting team stay ahead of the competition with all the features they provide for technical interview take-home tests. 

Filtered is a leader in skills-based hiring. Our end-to-end technical hiring platform enables you to spend time reviewing only the most qualified candidates, putting skills and aptitude at the forefront of your decisions. We’ll help you automate hiring while applying objective, data-driven techniques to consistently and confidently select the right candidates. To get started, contact our team today or register for a FREE demo.

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