Ability to code: The new resume for programmers

For a community that boasts of engineers who could program robots, create search engines and connect two opposite parts of the world—all through writing lines of code—the absence of a well managed programming jobs portal in the country seems highly surprising. Technology hiring company HackerRank seems to have taken the first step towards it through their platform HackerRank Jobs. Going the mobile way, HackerRank has launched an app designed to make job finding convenient for programmers.

With over 1.8 million programmers in the country, by 2018, India will have 5.2 million developers, according to a report by Evans Data Corporation report. However reports have also suggested lack of talent within organizations.

HackerRank, a popular community among programmers, with over 70,000 programmers registered on the site, identified key challenges faced by applicants during the recruitment process. Slow response time from the recruiter, lack of transparency on salary, lack of clarity on job description and company expectations from the employee were listed as the major ones.

“In most cases, applicants have no clue as to what happened to the job they applied to a month ago. This was listed as the major bottleneck by most applicants,” said Arpit Maheshwari, product manager at HackerRank, who also designed the app. The HackerRank Jobs app guarantees a five-day response time from the recruiter. The interactive app also lists out the salary and position for the available opening. Programmers applying for the job will receive a code challenge on their email accounts, which if cleared, will ensure a response from the employer within five days. “Programmers on our site suggested for a platform that would shortlist or reject them on their programming ability instead of their resumes,” said Harishankaran Karunanidhi, co-founder HackerRank. HackerRank has currently tied up with 12 Indian companies to test the beta version of their app and validate the business model. This includes the likes of, Visa, VMWare, Practo, CouponDuniya and Fidelity. The Palo Alto based company has also tied up with 12 companies in the U.S for HackerRank Jobs.