DevDraft: Tech Hiring Re-Invented

Technology companies can’t hire quickly enough, and yet many high tech positions remain open for months at a time. How can this be?

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About DevDraft: DevDraft™ is an online hiring event for Developer and SDET jobs at Washington State companies. You can show off your skills through creative challenges and be exposed anonymously and simultaneously to top local Tech companies, including Amazon, Moz, Disney Interactive, Energy Savvy and many more. DevDraft’s goal is to allow applicants of all backgrounds to shine and be looked at based purely on skills. As such, all the applicants remain anonymous until an offer to interview is given, eliminating any presentation-based influence of the resumés and cover letters. With a pre-screened skill set match, hiring managers can avoid resumé inflation and achieve a much higher success rate with less on-site interviews. The underlying Kitovet platform has been proven to save over 80 hours of recruiting time per hire.

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In an ideal job search process, candidates would apply straight away to the most suitable employer to match their skills. Recruiters and hiring managers would know that each candidate invited to on-site interviews would be the best possible fit for each open position.

The hiring process we actually have, however, is pretty much the opposite of this. Candidates routinely use stock key words to conform to job descriptions even though they don’t have the right skills, wasting precious screening time for companies. Also, companies often have lengthy hiring cycles and lose good candidates along the way.

In response to these painpoints, a new host of tech startups is now offering a range of innovative technologies to expedite recruiting and hiring (http://goo.gl/RBKh4a). Kitovet (http://www.kitovet.com/) is Seattle’s entrance into the race to technologize talent acquisition. Kitovet’s DevDraft (http://www.devdraft.com/) is a self-service online platform that was marketed and launched by a startup team in just a few months. Over 1500 developers signed up to take DevDraft’s coding challenges, the result of which is a metrics scorecard that presents a multi-dimensional view of a candidate’s technical skills.

Developers completed pre-qualifying challenges that tested skills in areas such as cost optimization, data type manipulation, and spatial recognition followed by a 24 hour intensive Finals round consisting of five problems in areas such as finding least cost pathways, logfile analytics, and debugging. Many finished at least one challenge with top finishers representing the type of elite candidates hiring managers are dreaming of.

So begins the era of one-click hiring, correct? Not quite so simple …

As economist Joseph Stiglitz put it in his article on imperfect information (http://goo.gl/MlaTwp) labor market rigidities go against the conventional understanding of supply and demand. If supply and demand worked the way it should, there would be no unemployment or labor shortages because wages would just flex to whatever level would attract the available applicant pool.

Explanations for these labor rigidities are numerous, but Stiglitz offers a straightforward interpretation that aligns with the idea of imperfect information. Namely, imperfect information leads to uncertainty, and as a result, companies tend to change slowly and cautiously, stifling innovation. So change occurs at the margins and incrementalism rules.

How can we remove the uncertainty, this imperfect information, from the hiring process so that companies quickly get the tech talent they need?

Adopting a sequence that begins with the equivalent of white-board skills demonstrations first? Evaluating candidates’ performance prior to screening their personal characteristics? Saving resume analysis and culture fit assessment for last?

Therein lies Kitovet’s own challenge. A common reaction by companies to the talent pool demonstrated in the DevDraft challenges was to revert back to a resume-driven screening process. So Kitovet faces the intriguing marketing challenge of retrofitting traditional packaging around its transformational product to make candidate performance demonstrations less immediately transparent, in an effort to be in synch with the current HR practices.

The good news for companies is that that tech talent is willing to go online, solve challenging problems, and opt to connect with employers.  Aside from early-adopters, will tech companies be ready to screen for performance metrics at stage one of the hiring process? High-tech recruiting startups like Kitovet will make an ideal investment for those looking to bet on tech-driven hiring models of the future.

Companies and developers can sign up for the next DevDraft event at http://seattle.devdraft.com/ or contact info@devdraft.com.

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Guest Blogger: Bob Bunge MS, MBA

Links

My NSC faculty web portal: http://facweb.northseattle.edu/rbunge

Personal Statement

I enjoy teaching networking here at North Seattle College!

Curriculum Vitae
* 11+ years teaching technology in higher education
* 6+ years managing networks for schools
* 30+ years as an education professional
* 15+ years working with online teaching and learning

Academic Honors

Phi Beta Kappa, Upsilon Pi Epsilon, PRIDE, Ron Taylor Award, Legacy of Service

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Tiffany Defarbus, MBA | Sales and Operations | DevDraft

After spending some time fighting international fraudsters, chargebacks and earning an MBA, Tiffany’s latest adventure takes her to Kitovet, a Seattle startup connecting techies with companies using performance metrics in an unbiased way. Tiffany is a curious world traveler and seeks out new experiences that takes her out of her comfort zone. She lived three years in Lille, France, and speaks fluent French and also picked up some Chilean Spanish along the way. Tiffany is an advocate for professional and leadership development, enjoy providing an excellent customer and user experience, with emphasis on international business and relations, risk management and operations. Random fact: Favorite food is moules frites (google it)