Great screening begins with a relevant and well-made Screen Test. This will impact both the experience for the candidate and the quality of the insights you get.
WATCH THE VIDEO FOR A QUICK INTRO:
OVERVIEW:
STEP 1:
If you're making a test for a specific role, make sure you have your job description handy so you can quickly revise and reference what skills and knowledge are the most important for this role.
STEP 2:
Browse the Codility library, create exclusive tasks of your own, or use a test template to build the basics of your test. It will be made up of one or more tasks (skill-based problems to solve) and/or questions (subjective or knowledge-based question sets) at varying difficulty levels (we have 4) depending on the role and experience level of the candidates you have coming through.
STEP 3:
Check that the test is going to work well for the role you're looking at either by asking a colleague to take it (and provide a benchmark score) or test driving it yourself.
NEED HELP?
Contact our support team at any time for advice on improving or fine-tuning your test.
ADVICE ON MAKING GREAT SCREENING TESTS:
STICK TO EASY AND MEDIUM DIFFICULTY TASKS:
Within our Hard tasks level, we've included a couple of tasks that have intimidatingly low success rates, great for Interview sessions, but not for Screen.
Most tests should stick to easy or medium-level tasks, since including hard tasks has a negative impact on the candidate's confidence, experience, and therefore results. Always test drive a hard task before selecting it, and refer to the average scores per recommended time to see what you might expect from your candidates. Our hard tasks are truly hard, and for screening, you'll want to minimize the chances of false negatives. If you really want to use them, use them in coordination with an easy task at the start, or use them during the interview stage with Interview.
USE 2-3 TASKS:
Codility allows you to add up to 10 tasks or questions into a test, however, we strongly recommend limiting your tests to just 2-3 tasks.
While having lots of tasks seems like it'd give you better insights into your candidate, in most circumstances, including more than 3 tasks starts to have a negative impact on the candidate's performance due to time and focus. We design tasks to give you enough insights into the specific skill for you to make a decision on whether to take the candidate to the next stage of your process.
INCLUDE A WARM-UP TASK:
Entering a timed screening space can be intimidating, so beginning your test with an elementary task is a great way to get your candidate accustomed to the Codility IDE, and also in a problem-solving mindset.
DO NOT USE TRAINING TASKS:
If you're recruiting, avoid including training tasks in your tests as they are not plagiarism protected to the same level as other tasks. In most cases, each training task has a similar substitute in the recruiting suite.
WHEN SCREENING JUNIOR CANDIDATES:
Making your test shorter, and easier is a good way to balance Junior candidate experience with useful skills-based screening and allows you to quickly identify top performers.
- Use easy and medium tasks - this will provide you with a better distribution of scores and a simple way to see whether the candidate has the fundamental skill you're looking for and whether they're able to apply that skill to something a little more complex.
- Set the time limit to recommended - the recommended time is based on the performance of other candidates attempting the tasks you've selected in the test. Making the time limit shorter will place unnecessary stress, and making it too relaxed will make it less obvious to spot high performers.
- Leaving the language options as open as possible - you're looking for skill, not necessarily knowledge of a specific domain. Most hiring managers would rather hire a smart dev who is able to learn quickly (who they can teach a specific language to), so allowing the candidate to use the language they're most fluent in, will give you the most accurate insights to their skills.
- Use knowledge questions - if you do want to hone in on their knowledge in a specific domain, use a multiple choice question set alongside some skills-based tasks.
WHEN SCREENING SENIOR CANDIDATES:
Making your test more relaxed, more challenging and include industry-relevant tasks, letting them show off their problem-solving abilities.
- Use medium and hard tasks - following an easier warm-up task, medium, and hard tasks will let you see the stretch in your senior candidates to separate out the good from the great.
- Make the time limit more relaxed - and communicate to your candidates that the test should only take them (the recommended time limit). Senior devs are often working or have families, and giving them more time allows them to account for unplanned distractions during the Screen session.
- Leaving all language options is always preferred - but if you are looking for a particular language then let the candidate know it's preferred.
- Use industry-skills questions - tied to the specific framework or job role that you're screening them for. You can also create your own custom tasks to make hyper-relevant tests.
- Consider using Interview for a live coding experience - in place of screening in Screen, use Interview for a virtual interview session as it'll increase engagement and move the candidate into the interview stage faster.
LEARN HOW TO TRY OUT YOUR TEST BEFORE YOU INVITE CANDIDATES: