One Creative Tactic for Pre-Screening Engineering Talent

Finding top-notch engineering talent can be hard enough. Screening that talent to weed out unqualified or unserious candidates? That can be total time vacuum. How can you make that process more efficient? In the final post of a three-part series on recruiting top engineering talent, Balihoo CTO Paul Price shares one simple solution.

Many growing software companies try to attract talent by simply stating that they have an engaging, transparent culture, innovative technology, and unique perks. While these are all positive aspects of a company, sharing these characteristics alone won’t help you find and hire the best software engineering talent.

On top of that, one of the most difficult aspects, says Paul Price, the CTO of Boise-based local marketing automation solution Balihoo, is actually finding the right talent to bring into the company without spending countless hours sifting through unqualified resumes or interviewing tire-kicker applicants and poor fits.

That can be a difficult task for a small company, and many CTOs live in constant fear of hiring the wrong person — someone who drags down the morale of a previously productive team, or a job-hopper who leaves soon after being hired, costing the company the time and money it invested in recruiting and training that person.

At Balihoo, however, Price has found a unique way to mitigate that challenge.

Get Creative with Your Pre-Screening

In order for engineers or software developers to submit applications for an open position at Balihoo, they have to first perform a basic programming exercise. The goal? Create a simple web service that actually allows the applicant to submit his or her resume to Price. The service can be written in any programming language and there isn’t just one, right way to do it — but the purpose of the exercise is clear.

“First, it allows us to weed out the people who aren’t really interested in the company or the job,” Price says. “And second, it gives us some insight into an engineer’s decision-making, creativity, and experience. It’s really an ideal way to pre-screen candidates before we bring them in for an interview. That way, we know that we’re only engaging people who are really interested in our company.”

That exercise also gives Price valuable interview fodder, which lets him skip past generic or abstract interview questions and dive right into the stuff that really matters, like a candidate’s ability to:

• Think creatively and embrace a challenge others might dismiss
• Focus on understanding the problem before diving into a solution
• Develop simple rather than overcomplicated solutions
• Demonstrate a clear understanding of how the web works

“By leading with that exercise, I can better decipher how they think by asking why they approached it the way they did. That lets me dig a little bit deeper into what makes someone tick, and that usually waterfalls into discussions that reveal more about who someone really is and what they care about.”

“Going back to what we talked about earlier,” Price explains, “that’s critical to a company’s ability to find, hire, and retain the best people for their business. If you truly understand what motivates and inspires people, and you work diligently to provide those things, then recruiting and retaining engineering talent becomes slightly less complicated.”

Photo by Mark Nockleby