It’s time to evaluate candidates for their work – not for resume logos

I’ve been on both sides of the technical recruiting process more times than I can count. Here’s the truth: the good candidates want to show you what they can do and the good hiring managers want to see it.

I’m really excited to share the new feature we’ve built that will help both candidates and companies get their wish. public take-home projects goes live today. With a simple link on a company’s Careers page, companies can make it easy for candidates to click, do a take-home project and “show” their coding skills. Suddenly the traditional resume and recruiter screen, with its ‘all tell/no show’ vibe, feels a lot less relevant. Candidates win by showing their best skills and recruiters save time while also casting a wider net. As a hiring manager, I get to quickly see who my best applicants are, sometimes even those I would have skipped based on resume alone.

We are hiring and know firsthand just how hard it is to find great talent. And I know our customers are seriously rethinking how they find great talent. They’re worrying less about the right universities, connections, and references – and focusing more on the right skills and abilities. Public take-home projects helps CoderPad make that happen – and helps our customers too.

We are using it ourselves for hiring our own engineers. We got several take-home projects submitted. In fact – two candidates we would have deprioritized based on resumes alone knocked it out of the park and are moving forward to live interviews. It just underscored that the resume is just one data point – and not remotely the most important one.

Casting a wide net. Pipeline problem. Commitment to diversity. Equitable workplaces. Companies talk a lot about hiring challenges. Public take-home projects gives them a chance to do something real – all while getting more great talent, quickly.