The Role of Candidate Experience in Attracting Top Tech Talent

Candidate experience is integral to hiring and retaining some of the best talents in the industry. There is immense competition in the job market today and a positive candidate experience is at the centre of every recruitment process. With AI and automation being at the core of workflows, the tech industry has seen a surge in demand for proficient candidates. Finding the right talent requires a deep understanding and consideration of candidate experience in tech recruitment. This article will explore why the role of candidate experience in attracting top tech talent is crucial in talent acquisition and how to streamline tech recruitment by implementing some of the best practices for enhanced candidate experience in tech.

Why Candidate Experience Matters?

The technical industry has experienced exponential growth in the past decade. The present generation of engineers has been at the forefront of developing automation and AI to what they are today. To find such highly driven individuals, recruiters must give importance to providing a positive hiring experience, thus ensuring quality and improving the hire rate. In the tech recruitment process, minor optimization leads to a better candidate experience thus ensuring successful employment in the future. Here are a few things recruiters must consider to ensure a positive candidate experience in tech.

Key Elements of a Positive Candidate Experience

Clear Job Description

Technical recruitment differs from regular recruitment. Recruiting the right engineering candidates requires hiring managers to understand how they function, speak their language and deeply understand how things work. Small things like putting up appropriate job descriptions matter. A lot hangs on job descriptions, as it is your first point of contact with prospective candidates. There is nothing more engineers appreciate than a no-nonsense description of the job. Fancy words do not entice them.

Easy Application Process

Once candidates read the job description and decide to apply for a technical position, they look forward to a simple application process. Attaching a simple Google Form to the job description could be one of the best ways to ensure a quick initial process. Nowadays, external sources of recruitment like LinkedIn, Naukri, etc. allow companies to upload questionnaires along with job descriptions. Multiple rounds in the initial tech recruitment phase can put off talented candidates and they drop off to look for other opportunities that are less complex.

Clear and engaging ads

The digital age has gifted something very unique to technical recruiters, the ability to attract prospective candidates through online advertisements. If you plan to advertise for technical roles, ensure that they reach the target audience. The ad copy must contain concise language with a well-placed call to action button. So when a prospective technical candidate comes across your ad, they should be able to reach your job portal with very little delay. Linking the CTA button to an online application form will expedite the process.

Regular and Transparent Communication

The importance of clear articulation in tech recruitment cannot be emphasized enough. Clear communication is one of the ways of enhancing candidate experience in technical roles. Acknowledging application requests and sending clear instructions for further steps as soon as you process the initial application forms is a good way of improving the candidate journey in technical recruitment.

Respect for the candidate’s time

Time is of the essence in today’s fast-paced world. It applies to both businesses as well as individuals. Respecting an applicant’s time is one of the best practices for candidate experience in tech. When recruiters take the time to cater to a candidate’s time by scheduling interviews after consulting with them, it plays a crucial role in enhancing candidate experience in technical roles. This professionalism reflects positively on your company’s organizational capabilities.

Structured and fair interview process

Your time is billable, and so is your candidate’s. Hence, creating a structured interview workflow is of prime importance to ensure a seamless transition, thus paving the way for a positive candidate experience in tech recruitment. Allot some time to make the candidate feel relaxed for the interview process by sending a list of activities to them a day before the scheduled interview. This helps them prepare better and you get to conduct productive interviews. Include questions that pertain to the candidate’s previous work experience in your questionnaire and maintaining a calm demeanour goes a long way in facilitating a successful interview. After the process is over, don’t take more than two days to provide candidates with their performance feedback. If they are not hired, include a feedback email explaining why it did not work instead of ghosting them and leaving them hanging for answers.

Tech recruitment gets complicated in the absence of a candidate-centric workflow. Allowing candidates to prove themselves fairly helps in improving the candidate journey in tech recruitment. Remember, a candidate’s opinions about your interview and hiring process are factors that reflect your organization’s work ethic to the outside world. The impact of candidate experience on hiring success is crucial, although small. The following parameters can help gauge a candidate’s experience in the tech industry, These parameters help you understand whether a particular candidate is the right fit, early on in the hiring process.

Leveraging Tech Tools for Better Candidate Experience

In this age of fast-paced internet and technology, recruiters must have a strong understanding of tech tools to expedite the hiring process and ensure positive candidate experience. There are many software in the market that facilitate a good candidate experience in tech recruitment in addition to making the hiring process easy for tech recruiters. Following are a few ways in which hiring companies can optimize their candidate experience in tech recruitment.

Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)

An ATS automates many aspects of recruitment such as collecting applications, screening resumes, scheduling interviews, and sending communication emails. This automation saves time while ensuring consistency across interactions with candidates.

Online Interview Platforms

Platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet facilitate virtual interviews, making it more convenient for both candidates and recruiters to manage schedules without geographical constraints. There are online tech recruitment software like Hackerearth that offer Interview as a Service to companies who seek them. HackerEarth allows companies to conduct numerous interviews for multiple roles within a short period of time.

Chatbots & Text Messaging Software

Chatbots and text messaging software can automate communication with candidates, providing timely updates and addressing frequent inquiries efficiently. This personalized touch enhances engagement levels significantly.

Candidate Experience Analysis Tools

Tools specifically designed to measure and analyze candidate experience provide invaluable insights for continuous improvement. They track metrics such as application completion rates, interview-to-offer ratios, and offer acceptance rates, helping organizations refine their strategies accordingly.

Engaging automation and AI to optimize the recruitment process is a great way of improving candidate journey in technical recruitment. However, these technologies can only enhance the framework you create.

Conclusion

The impact of candidate experience in tech recruitment is of paramount importance. A hiring team represents an organization to the outside world. A shaky hiring process will reflect badly on the organization’s reputation, thus impacting the recruitment of fresh talent. A candidate’s time is equally important, hence communication delays and ghosting after an interview session reflects badly on the organization you represent. Above everything, when you are looking for highly qualified and seasoned candidates, it is imperative that you think of their expectations during the hiring process. Streamlining your hiring process using automation and AI will guarantee a positive candidate experience which in turn ensures successful employment.

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Gain insights to optimize your developer recruitment process.

Hackathons

Vibe Coding: Shaping the Future of Software

A New Era of Code

Vibe coding is a new method of using natural language prompts and AI tools to generate code. I have seen firsthand that this change makes software more accessible to everyone. In the past, being able to produce functional code was a strong advantage for developers. Today, when code is produced quickly through AI, the true value lies in designing, refining, and optimizing systems. Our role now goes beyond writing code; we must also ensure that our systems remain efficient and reliable.

From Machine Language to Natural Language

I recall the early days when every line of code was written manually. We progressed from machine language to high-level programming, and now we are beginning to interact with our tools using natural language. This development does not only increase speed but also changes how we approach problem solving. Product managers can now create working demos in hours instead of weeks, and founders have a clearer way of pitching their ideas with functional prototypes. It is important for us to rethink our role as developers and focus on architecture and system design rather than simply on typing c

The Promise and the Pitfalls

I have experienced both sides of vibe coding. In cases where the goal was to build a quick prototype or a simple internal tool, AI-generated code provided impressive results. Teams have been able to test new ideas and validate concepts much faster. However, when it comes to more complex systems that require careful planning and attention to detail, the output from AI can be problematic. I have seen situations where AI produces large volumes of code that become difficult to manage without significant human intervention.

AI-powered coding tools like GitHub Copilot and AWS’s Q Developer have demonstrated significant productivity gains. For instance, at the National Australia Bank, it’s reported that half of the production code is generated by Q Developer, allowing developers to focus on higher-level problem-solving . Similarly, platforms like Lovable enable non-coders to build viable tech businesses using natural language prompts, contributing to a shift where AI-generated code reduces the need for large engineering teams. However, there are challenges. AI-generated code can sometimes be verbose or lack the architectural discipline required for complex systems. While AI can rapidly produce prototypes or simple utilities, building large-scale systems still necessitates experienced engineers to refine and optimize the code.

The Economic Impact

The democratization of code generation is altering the economic landscape of software development. As AI tools become more prevalent, the value of average coding skills may diminish, potentially affecting salaries for entry-level positions. Conversely, developers who excel in system design, architecture, and optimization are likely to see increased demand and compensation.
Seizing the Opportunity

Vibe coding is most beneficial in areas such as rapid prototyping and building simple applications or internal tools. It frees up valuable time that we can then invest in higher-level tasks such as system architecture, security, and user experience. When used in the right context, AI becomes a helpful partner that accelerates the development process without replacing the need for skilled engineers.

This is revolutionizing our craft, much like the shift from machine language to assembly to high-level languages did in the past. AI can churn out code at lightning speed, but remember, “Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.” Use AI for rapid prototyping, but it’s your expertise that transforms raw output into robust, scalable software. By honing our skills in design and architecture, we ensure our work remains impactful and enduring. Let’s continue to learn, adapt, and build software that stands the test of time.

Ready to streamline your recruitment process? Get a free demo to explore cutting-edge solutions and resources for your hiring needs.

Tech Assessment

Guide to Conducting Successful System Design Interviews in 2025

What is Systems Design?

Systems Design is an all encompassing term which encapsulates both frontend and backend components harmonized to define the overall architecture of a product.

Designing robust and scalable systems requires a deep understanding of application, architecture and their underlying components like networks, data, interfaces and modules.

Systems Design, in its essence, is a blueprint of how software and applications should work to meet specific goals. The multi-dimensional nature of this discipline makes it open-ended – as there is no single one-size-fits-all solution to a system design problem.

What is a System Design Interview?

Conducting a System Design interview requires recruiters to take an unconventional approach and look beyond right or wrong answers. Recruiters should aim for evaluating a candidate’s ‘systemic thinking’ skills across three key aspects:

How they navigate technical complexity and navigate uncertainty
How they meet expectations of scale, security and speed
How they focus on the bigger picture without losing sight of details

This assessment of the end-to-end thought process and a holistic approach to problem-solving is what the interview should focus on.

What are some common topics for a System Design Interview

System design interview questions are free-form and exploratory in nature where there is no right or best answer to a specific problem statement. Here are some common questions:

How would you approach the design of a social media app or video app?

What are some ways to design a search engine or a ticketing system?

How would you design an API for a payment gateway?

What are some trade-offs and constraints you will consider while designing systems?

What is your rationale for taking a particular approach to problem solving?

Usually, interviewers base the questions depending on the organization, its goals, key competitors and a candidate’s experience level.

For senior roles, the questions tend to focus on assessing the computational thinking, decision making and reasoning ability of a candidate. For entry level job interviews, the questions are designed to test the hard skills required for building a system architecture.

The Difference between a System Design Interview and a Coding Interview

If a coding interview is like a map that takes you from point A to Z – a systems design interview is like a compass which gives you a sense of the right direction.

Here are three key difference between the two:

Coding challenges follow a linear interviewing experience i.e. candidates are given a problem and interaction with recruiters is limited. System design interviews are more lateral and conversational, requiring active participation from interviewers.

Coding interviews or challenges focus on evaluating the technical acumen of a candidate whereas systems design interviews are oriented to assess problem solving and interpersonal skills.

Coding interviews are based on a right/wrong approach with ideal answers to problem statements while a systems design interview focuses on assessing the thought process and the ability to reason from first principles.

How to Conduct an Effective System Design Interview

One common mistake recruiters make is that they approach a system design interview with the expectations and preparation of a typical coding interview.
Here is a four step framework technical recruiters can follow to ensure a seamless and productive interview experience:

Step 1: Understand the subject at hand

Develop an understanding of basics of system design and architecture
Familiarize yourself with commonly asked systems design interview questions
Read about system design case studies for popular applications
Structure the questions and problems by increasing magnitude of difficulty

Step 2: Prepare for the interview

Plan the extent of the topics and scope of discussion in advance
Clearly define the evaluation criteria and communicate expectations
Quantify constraints, inputs, boundaries and assumptions
Establish the broader context and a detailed scope of the exercise

Step 3: Stay actively involved

Ask follow-up questions to challenge a solution
Probe candidates to gauge real-time logical reasoning skills
Make it a conversation and take notes of important pointers and outcomes
Guide candidates with hints and suggestions to steer them in the right direction

Step 4: Be a collaborator

Encourage candidates to explore and consider alternative solutions
Work with the candidate to drill the problem into smaller tasks
Provide context and supporting details to help candidates stay on track
Ask follow-up questions to learn about the candidate’s experience

Technical recruiters and hiring managers should aim for providing an environment of positive reinforcement, actionable feedback and encouragement to candidates.

Evaluation Rubric for Candidates

Facilitate Successful System Design Interview Experiences with FaceCode

FaceCode, HackerEarth’s intuitive and secure platform, empowers recruiters to conduct system design interviews in a live coding environment with HD video chat.

FaceCode comes with an interactive diagram board which makes it easier for interviewers to assess the design thinking skills and conduct communication assessments using a built-in library of diagram based questions.

With FaceCode, you can combine your feedback points with AI-powered insights to generate accurate, data-driven assessment reports in a breeze. Plus, you can access interview recordings and transcripts anytime to recall and trace back the interview experience.

Learn how FaceCode can help you conduct system design interviews and boost your hiring efficiency.

AI Recruiting

How Candidates Use Technology to Cheat in Online Technical Assessments

Impact of Online Assessments in Technical Hiring

In a digitally-native hiring landscape, online assessments have proven to be both a boon and a bane for recruiters and employers.

The ease and efficiency of virtual interviews, take home programming tests and remote coding challenges is transformative. Around 82% of companies use pre-employment assessments as reliable indicators of a candidate's skills and potential.

Online skill assessment tests have been proven to streamline technical hiring and enable recruiters to significantly reduce the time and cost to identify and hire top talent.

In the realm of online assessments, remote assessments have transformed the hiring landscape, boosting the speed and efficiency of screening and evaluating talent. On the flip side, candidates have learned how to use creative methods and AI tools to cheat in tests.

As it turns out, technology that makes hiring easier for recruiters and managers - is also their Achilles' heel.

Cheating in Online Assessments is a High Stakes Problem

With the proliferation of AI in recruitment, the conversation around cheating has come to the forefront, putting recruiters and hiring managers in a bit of a flux.

According to research, nearly 30 to 50 percent of candidates cheat in online assessments for entry level jobs. Even 10% of senior candidates have been reportedly caught cheating.

The problem becomes twofold - if finding the right talent can be a competitive advantage, the consequences of hiring the wrong one can be equally damaging and counter-productive.

As per Forbes, a wrong hire can cost a company around 30% of an employee's salary - not to mention, loss of precious productive hours and morale disruption.

The question that arises is - "Can organizations continue to leverage AI-driven tools for online assessments without compromising on the integrity of their hiring process? "

This article will discuss the common methods candidates use to outsmart online assessments. We will also dive deep into actionable steps that you can take to prevent cheating while delivering a positive candidate experience.

Common Cheating Tactics and How You Can Combat Them

Using ChatGPT and other AI tools to write code
Copy-pasting code using AI-based platforms and online code generators is one of common cheat codes in candidates' books. For tackling technical assessments, candidates conveniently use readily available tools like ChatGPT and GitHub. Using these tools, candidates can easily generate solutions to solve common programming challenges such as:
- Debugging code
- Optimizing existing code
- Writing problem-specific code from scratch
Ways to prevent it
- Enable full-screen mode
- Disable copy-and-paste functionality
- Restrict tab switching outside of code editors
- Use AI to detect code that has been copied and pasted
Enlist external help to complete the assessment

Candidates often seek out someone else to take the assessment on their behalf. In many cases, they also use screen sharing and remote collaboration tools for real-time assistance.

In extreme cases, some candidates might have an off-camera individual present in the same environment for help.

Ways to prevent it
- Verify a candidate using video authentication
- Restrict test access from specific IP addresses
- Use online proctoring by taking snapshots of the candidate periodically
- Use a 360 degree environment scan to ensure no unauthorized individual is present
Using multiple devices at the same time

Candidates attempting to cheat often rely on secondary devices such as a computer, tablet, notebook or a mobile phone hidden from the line of sight of their webcam.

By using multiple devices, candidates can look up information, search for solutions or simply augment their answers.

Ways to prevent it
- Track mouse exit count to detect irregularities
- Detect when a new device or peripheral is connected
- Use network monitoring and scanning to detect any smart devices in proximity
- Conduct a virtual whiteboard interview to monitor movements and gestures
Using remote desktop software and virtual machines

Tech-savvy candidates go to great lengths to cheat. Using virtual machines, candidates can search for answers using a secondary OS while their primary OS is being monitored.

Remote desktop software is another cheating technique which lets candidates give access to a third-person, allowing them to control their device.

With remote desktops, candidates can screen share the test window and use external help.

Ways to prevent it
- Restrict access to virtual machines
- AI-based proctoring for identifying malicious keystrokes
- Use smart browsers to block candidates from using VMs

Future-proof Your Online Assessments With HackerEarth

HackerEarth's AI-powered online proctoring solution is a tested and proven way to outsmart cheating and take preventive measures at the right stage. With HackerEarth's Smart Browser, recruiters can mitigate the threat of cheating and ensure their online assessments are accurate and trustworthy.

Secure, sealed-off testing environment
AI-enabled live test monitoring
Enterprise-grade, industry leading compliance
Built-in features to track, detect and flag cheating attempts

Boost your hiring efficiency and conduct reliable online assessments confidently with HackerEarth's revolutionary Smart Browser.