Going ahead to sort out more than thousands of resumes favouring specific skill-set profiles that are required for a niche job roles cuts the screening time for the candidates to be interviewed in person. And thereafter in-person interview is undergone for final selection of the candidates. This has been handled for many years as a tried and true method of recruiting new people in your company. It takes lots of time and expenses. Even after such a tedious exercise, the people recruited wouldn’t be assessed properly as to how far they are fit for the job offered. They need training, mentoring which may further need three to six months. After that, you may get 50% right candidate for the job. By then you have expended a lot and your HR turnover has gone up. So your HR policy needs to be changed.
What HR is thinking about Recruitment?
The HR industries have been exercising a vast change like any other industry. This trend is fuelled to act and react amongst the workforces that are available within and as well as the fresh workforces that are ready to get employment. Yes, it is the technology that makes the difference. The stronger is the grasp of technology that supports innovation means larger is the engagement and retention to grow and up skill one’s career. This is the message of the time to all HR executives. The engagement and retention of the workforce require connecting with this community and influencing to expand the professional circle. Let it be explored how hackathon can revolutionize the hiring process.
What is Hackathon?
It is a process that collaborate both coders and developers to create a software package within their peers on a pre-assigned concept. The entire process is completed within a period of two days to a week. It is very popular amongst the fresh graduates who can take the challenge and opportunity to project a sound creative and technical mind-set to work together with other professionals skilled in different fields to build something new and innovative. The entire process is done through online hackathons where on registration a candidate will get the problem, to which a solution is sought, the solution proposed to be uploaded online and evaluation will also be made online. Everything is framed time bound. This process also enables an organization to let them know the developers who can bring up with the most suitable and efficient solution within the tight deadlines. This is, however, an amazing process instead of hiring people through the traditional interviewing system to keep employees engaged.
Reasons for Recruiting at Hackathon
Carrying out hackathon, more specifically, the contest aims to find out solution sought to the problem that set out by the organizer of the competition. The rewards go to the participants in terms of money or job offers. The exact reasons for recruiting through hackathon are:
- Observing People at Work
Employees are the important stakeholders and as well as most valuable assets of an organization. While selecting an employee through a cumbersome process of screening the applications, interviewing in person you need to evaluate and assess many things of a candidate like academic qualification, soft skills, the area of specialization and many more. Still, these are not enough to reach an emphatic decision that the candidate has the ability and skill that are necessary for the real world. You also cannot categorically speak how the new candidate can contribute to growing the company. It is because you didn’t observe any practical work of the candidate which may be pertinent to your line of business. It is the online hackathons that can bring you the opportunity to evaluate and assess the candidates to observe their work ethics to solve a problem that can contribute the company to grow which an interview could never ever allow you to find out.
- No Stress, No Problems, and Saves Time for Interview
The traditional job interview process is based on in-person conversation and consists of a lot of stressful stages. The most disadvantage of the system is that you cannot dismiss a candidate entirely. In today’s reality managing stress and dealing, the huge magnitude of workloads is a valuable skill in any industry. And all these things are sometimes; however, so unpredictable that can erase the opportunity of landing a job. On the other hand, online hackathons create the opportunities to have a more relaxed conversation with the candidates in an innovative environment that allows the participants to explore presenting themselves as to who they are to contribute for the future growth and development. When your HR executives during the course of hackathon notice a potentially valuable candidate for a specific position of the company they could immediately get in touch with that participant for a straight forward interview in-person. Such impromptu conversation with the interviewer will certainly open the space for an honest dialogue which would save your time and money both.
- Fewer Applications and Find the Most Dedicated Candidate
Technical recruitment through online hackathons widens your space to observe the participant’s workable capacity with particular reference to the problems of your company. It also gives you the opportunity to assess the feasibility and efficacy of the solution what has been placed to you as against a set of problems that were put to the candidates and sought solutions. This process enlarges your advantage to choose the fit candidates and ask them to submit their resume for an in-person interview. This shortens your work to find out the potential candidates from thousands of CVs as needed to work out at the earlier traditional procedure of recruitment. Now one thing is clear that the people whom you have chosen for an interview can give you an extra mileage to achieve the goals of the company. Another thing is also clear that the participants who are finally selected have a full idea about your company. Now your final choice is to select the best of the candidates who have a passion and dedication to the vision and mission of the company.
