90 Per cent Tech Recruiters Looking For Developers Who Learned New Skills During Lockdown
Excellent coding skills rank way higher for the Indian tech recruiters when hiring developers, as compared to relevant experience, similar past projects or educational degrees, revealed TimesJobs survey.
TimesJobs' 'Developer Hiring Survey 2021' was conducted among 957 tech recruiters to understand their preferences while hiring developers.
The survey found that most (38%) recruiters would hire a developer with excellent coding skills, overlooking his educational achievements or experience. Over 28% respondents said that a developer's (relevant) experience would be their sole criterion for hiring. Next 21% said they considered relevant educational qualifications as the only bar when hiring a developer. Remaining 13% said that they would hire a developer basis his performance in interview and skill tests and no other factor would matter.
The respondents of 'Developer Hiring Survey 2021' belonged to startups (24%), SMBs(34%) and MNCs(42%).
Remote talent assessment caught pace in the COVID-19 lockdown when businesses - big and small - turned to AI-driven specialised platforms such as SpeedHire for bias-free, cheating proof, accurate assessment. Such platforms save on a recruiters' time, effort and are location-agnostic, which is the need of the hour.
The TimesJobs survey asked if women coders still faced bias from recruiters and firms, and most (82%) respondents said 'yes'. Of these, most respondents (57%) agreed that gender bias is the main reason that very few female software developers are eventually hired, whereas 43% disagreed with this statement.
Upskilling and reskilling are a pertinent need in the IT sector where firms always prefer developers adept in emerging technologies. TimesJobs asked the hiring managers if they preferred developers who had learnt extra skills during the lockdown. The unanimous answer was 'yes', stated by 90% respondents. Only 10% said 'no', this was not necessary for them.