Are 'Coding Tests' Effective in Developer Recruitment? Just had a back and forth with Salesforce about a developer position and it ended after I politely said I do not take 'code tests'. I believe that these mandatory coding tests are ineffective in doing anything but changing the company/hire dynamics in a bad way. Am I wrong? What do people think and what are some other experiences developers have had? |
If done in a multiple-choice test fashion, coding tests are worse than useless. The questions usually hinge on minutia of syntax, like operator precedence. Also, they're usually done in Word, so auto-capitalization can cause problems. For instance, in Java, "boolean" and "Boolean" act differently. Word, in its infinite auto-capitalization wisdom, can make test-writers look like boobs to test-takers.
Coding tests when done with experience programmers watching via a collaboration tool, could be illuminating to the watchers. Seeing little things happen could tell a lot about the test-taker.
Unfortunately, the point of a coding test seems to be to allow some kind of administrative filtering on candidates before the interview-with-a-programmer, so they're often multiple choice and a hindrance to finding the right people.
I'll take multiple-choice coding tests, but only for their humor value. I would have a distinct bias against a potential employer that used them, and a larger bias against a potential employer that put any faith in coding tests.