Integrate ‘gamification’ into the campus recruiting process wherever possible with contests, giveaways, and challenges of all kinds.
Communicate concrete examples of your company’s culture of innovation and individualism. Remember: you’re competing with Google, whether you’re ready or not.
Connect the dots on how a candidate’s contribution can have maximum positive impact on society, how the work they accomplish will affect more than the company’s bottom line.
(Programming) Challenge Me
While we’re biased when it comes to programming challenges to qualify candidates, our customers (leaders in the tech industry) use them because they work. Join the 21st century by allowing candidates to code in-browser to solve custom programming challenges. Many technical students are already very familiar with the concept of programming challenges… from their spare time! Communities and online platforms dedicated to solving programming challenges for fun–like our HackerRank site–have transformed programming into a communal recreational pursuit.
Leading with a programming challenge can save time during the actual campus event and set candidates’ expectations of available positions and required skill-sets. Those who do very well on the programming challenges can double-down on their interview prep while those who don’t can move quickly on to the next opportunity. “Open coding competitions, followed by an interview, can be mutually beneficial for companies looking for special skills like problem-solving or specific types of programming knowledge. Coding competitions can also find the hidden gems of eligible candidates from lesser-known universities,” says Sumit Kumar, a graduate student earning his Master’s degree in high performance computing.
While standard practicalities like job location, perks, and compensation do figure into candidates’ acceptance decisions, they are losing ground to company culture… very specific aspects of company culture. While big brands with a widely-publicized culture can get by with less emphasis on this, startups and lesser-known companies should make communicating what sets them apart in the marketplace from a cultural perspective their #1 priority during campus recruiting. “We’ve read and heard how companies like Google and Facebook are presenting their company culture to the public. I am obviously attracted to such well-known organizations where there is a big emphasis on self-direction, freedom of expression, employee development… an atmosphere that fundamentally encourages growth,” says Rizwan Hudda, a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. “For lesser-known companies to compete, it’s critical that they communicate what value they offer to me other than the obvious.” It can be done, however. Rizwan chose a position at investment firm Tower Research Capital LLC over an offer from Google. What lured him away from the poster-child for luxurious perks and free-wheeling corporate culture? “Tower Research employs some well-known programmers whom I admire. The chance to work with them and grow as part of their team was a unique experience no one else could offer,” says Rizwan.
Make It Mission Impossible
It’s been more than a decade since the aspirations of new grads moved past stable long-term positions into a need for emotional and intellectual fulfillment from their careers. Now–when companies like Apple put their product into every hand in America and Google has mapped the planet–new grads want to know the potential their contribution has to impact society on a large scale.
So, what did we learn? Sound off:
