60% of tech recruiters are ready to ditch the CV

WIth unprecedented demand for developers, finding qualified tech candidates will be the No1 challenge in 2022, as recruiters look to widen their talent pools to fill key positions, according to a joint report published by CodinGame and CoderPad.

CodinGame and CoderPad polled more than 14,000 developers and tech recruiters across the globe, to compile its 5th annual Tech Hiring Survey*.

The report reveals that tech recruiters have also made candidate experience during the hiring process a priority in 2022, to attract the best developers in a candidate-driven market. 

And remote working, which became the norm during the pandemic, is conclusively here to stay, as the majority of developers polled say they prefer to work away from the office. 

CodinGame and CoderPad’s latest survey reveals that almost half of tech recruiters are struggling to find qualified candidates.

Although 53% of recruiters have extra budget for hiring developers, competition is fierce for the very best tech profiles, with full stack and back end engineers the hardest positions to fill. 

Of the tech recruiters who responded to the survey, 35% intend to hire more than 50 developers in 2022, with 15% planning to hire over 200 developers**. 

Recruiters recognise they need to adapt, and many are placing widening the talent pool at the heart of their HR strategies, in order to fill a high number of tech positions. 

With that in mind, more than half (57%) of those recruiters polled said they were open to ignoring the CV and base hiring decisions on live technical assessments, rather than relying simply on experience and academic qualifications.

The limitations of the resume are well documented when it comes to identifying candidates who have the necessary tech skills, but don’t have formal qualifications.

Recruiters are already hiring more developers with non-academic backgrounds than ever before. Four-in-ten (40%) recruiters polled said they regularly hire developers without a formal qualification in programming, up from 24% a year ago. 

Waving goodbye to the CV would expand the tech talent pool further.

Two thirds (66%) of recruiters also believe that bias is an issue in technical recruitment, and the resume is a major contributory factor. Skills-based hiring assessment tools are proven to remove bias and embrace diversity.

Candidate experience

In a candidate-driven market, tech recruiters have pinpointed candidate experience as a top priority in 2022.

Candidate experience starts with the hiring process and traditional whiteboard ‘pen and paper’ interviews are disliked by the majority of candidates according to the report

When developers and recruiters were asked what their preferred interview format was, both sides were in agreement that they preferred live coding interviews over whiteboard interviews. 

Whiteboard interviews can be problematic because they can eliminate highly qualified candidates who aren’t used to performing in front of people.

Working remotely

Over the past 18 months, remote working has become the norm. Although pandemic restrictions have lifted, and people have returned to the office, many employees still prefer to work remotely some of the time. 

The report emphatically shows that remote working is favoured by developers, with seven-in-ten (70%) preferring to work remotely in 2022, while just 4% said they are keen to work in the office full-time.

A third (33%) of developers polled said they would prefer to work remotely full-time, with 37% preferring to work remotely a few days a week. A year ago, less than a quarter (23%) of developers polled said they would like to work full-remote.

One-in-three recruiters polled said they currently offered full-time remote working. With just 20% of developers considering jobs in the city they reside in, offering full-time remote working would widen the pool of talent available to companies, and enable recruiters to attract the very best tech talent.

Frederic Desmoulins, co-founder & CEO of developer recruitment platform CodinGame, comments: 

“Recruiters are more aware than ever that they need to adapt if they are going to find and attract the most talented tech candidates. In a candidate-driven market, recruiters need to find an edge over the competition or be left behind. 

“We’re already seeing more tech recruiters widening their talent pools, and hiring developers who don’t have the traditional academic background. 

“Of the developers we polled, 40% didn’t learn to code at school or university. It’s likely if they were considered using the traditional CV, they might be overlooked, when in fact they might be the most qualified person for the role.

“Too much emphasis has been placed on the resume, and companies are slowly waking up to the limitations of basing hiring decisions around it.

“In the future, we can expect to see more companies switching to skills-based hiring, and specifically live coding interviews, to enhance candidate experience, expand the tech talent pool and remove bias from the interview process.”

Methodology: For its latest Tech Hiring Report, CodinGame and CoderPad surveyed *more than 14,000 developers and tech recruiters from 131 countries around the world, between October 2021 and December 2021.

**30% of recruiters who responded to the survey work for companies with more than 1,000 employees.