Employers are divided into demand and diversity reports

HackerEarth, the provider of software developer talent, evaluation, upskill and hiring solutions, today released its annual state-of-the-art developer recruitment report. The report outlines the changing priorities for hiring professionals in the technology industry and the challenges associated with hiring qualified candidates in the ongoing battle for great resignation and talent.

The 2021 State of Developer Recruitment Report is based on survey data from approximately 2,500 engineering managers and HR professionals in 79 countries; Across industries including technology, pharmaceutical, retail, automobile, construction, banking, media, finance and insurance. The aim of the report is to outline the best practices for hiring professional and developing candidates and to determine the landscape of post-epidemic recruitment.

A record-breaking 2.9 percent of workers quit their jobs in August 2021 in search of better opportunities, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Many are demanding increased flexibility in their job search – more work-life balance from remote and hybrid options – because companies are desperate to fulfill the role. The HackerEarth report suggests that by 2022 there will be a market for candidates and that the technology industry must change the way it evaluates candidates.

Additionally, when 2021 focuses on recruitment and DE & I in the workplace, HackerEarth reports that employers are slightly divided between wanting to recruit different candidates and fulfilling roles quickly based on supply and demand. An irresistible number of engineering directors are more concerned with shipping codes than creating different teams.

Key findings from the 2021 State of Developer Recruitment Report include:

• Employing managers tend to prioritize skills over everything else, but not always
• Both the engineering manager and the employer are best suited when sourcing and evaluating candidates.
• However, with more than 30 percent of employers saying they would never compromise on candidate quality to fill a role, 35 percent of engineering managers said they would compromise for quick recruitment.
• For many, hiring a developer is more important than hiring the perfect variety of candidates. Diversity as a criterion can be an additional burden in the current employment environment.

Some conventional methods and mentality survive despite the shift to remote / hybrid work

• About 28.9 percent of respondents who do not use an assessment tool say they think their methods are effective, indicating that they have not thought about the flaws in the process and the underlying bias.
• Most of the respondents who said that they do not use an assessment tool, believe that selecting candidates through resume or telephone conversation is enough to take them to the interview round.
• Conversely, companies that use evaluation tools for their technical recruitment reports have a more standardized process that evaluates objectives and results more accurately.

Despite the slow change in some areas, remote work has helped reduce friction and change attitudes

• The number of recruiters and engineering managers who felt the alignment with the skills required for a role has been declining since last year.
• Both the employer and the engineering manager agree that the quality of the candidate and the deadline are important pain points of the process that need to be addressed.
• Both parties appear to be keen on un-siloing the technology recruitment process in the wake of the epidemic.

Looking to 2022 …

• Overall, 5 out of 10 respondents said they conducted an internal hackathon last year and found it improved thinking and cross-team effectiveness.
• While 37.9 percent of respondents said working out of the office would be voluntary in the near future, about 33 percent said they plan to move away completely.
• 8 out of 10 engineering managers say they will continue to use the coding interview tool even after personal interviews become normal.