Fi d TimesJobs.com’s career articles, expert advise and tips @ www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com, Jobs & Career section VOLUME-IV | ISSUE 4 APRIL 2014 www.content.timesjobs.com A recent TimesJobs.com survey highlighted that 77% organisations believe coding contests are an effective assessment tool PAGE3 Read the experiences of some organisations who have implemented coding contests for branding and talent engagement PAGE5 Are coding contests the new age engagement and branding tool? Industry experts share their point of view PAGE8 NEW AGE BRANDING & ENGAGEMENT DECODING DECODING Find TimesJobs.com’s career articles, expert advise and tips @ www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com, Jobs & Career section
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Fi d TimesJobs.com’s career articles, expert advise and tips @ www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com, Jobs & Career section
VOLUME-IV | ISSUE 4APRIL 2014
www.content.timesjobs.com
A recent TimesJobs.com survey highlighted that 77% organisations believe coding contests are an effective assessment tool
PAGE3
Read the experiences of some organisations who have implemented coding contests forbranding and talent engagement
PAGE5
Are coding contests the new age engagement and branding tool? Industry experts share their point of view
PAGE8
NEW AGE BRANDING & ENGAGEMENT
DECODINGDECODING
Find TimesJobs.com’s career articles, expert advise and tips @ www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com, Jobs & Career section
Increasing recognitionOver the past six decades,branding and engagement hascome a long way. Organisations,today, are constantly looking fornew and innovative ways toencourage and enable employeesto demonstrate their skills andexpertise.
Coding contests have emergedas one such tool which isglobally acknowledged as aneffective branding andengagement tool.
This has been corroborated by aTimesJobs.com survey, where 57 per cent of the organisationsagreed that coding contests arean effective branding andemployee engagement tool.
Also, contrary to the commonnotion that these contests aremore relevant for the ITindustry, other key sectors arealso taking note of it.
According to the survey, over 90 per cent of the organisationsin the IT/Telecom sector saidthat they will extensively beusing coding contests in thefuture.
In the same survey, an almostequal percentage ofrepresentative companies in theBFSI and Manufacturing sectoralso showed interest in usingcoding contests for engagementand branding purpose.
Relying on specialistsMany factors contribute toeffective planning andimplementation of a codingcontest. It has to be userfriendly, engaging and catchy.All the phases involve a lot oftechnological and creativeintervention. Besides computingand infrastructurerequirements, developing
contest problems, scoring andjudging issues, organisationaland technical challenges alsoneed to be considered.
Arvind Ramachandra, chiefarchitect, Altimetrik explainedthat the format of coding
contests is very challenging. Theparadigm of real time codingmakes it even more challenging.
Organisations understand theirlimitations and thus, over 55 per cent of the organisationsplan to implement codingcontests through external/thirdparty websites, revealed theTimesJobs.com survey. Sincethese websites specialise inconducting such contests
organisations prefer to use theirexpertise instead of using theirown resources.
Some key elements that shouldbe considered in running asuccessful coding contestinclude:
Promoting coolness factor:Company coolness factor is vitalas an organisation will not beable to attract top developers ifthey do not project a young andlively image.
Respecting the community:While as an organisation yourobjective has to be defined, itshould be under stated. Makethe event fun. Let it be a healthycompetition rather than an in-your-face branding orengagement technique.
Owning it end-to-end:Make sure your organisation asa team owns the whole contest,even if it has been outsourced.
Value to employeesWhile coding contests arehelpful for organisations, theyalso help employees in a big way.
In a poll conducted byTimesJobs.com, 48 per cent ofemployees said that codingcontests are great as a tool forlearning and self assessment.
“Today’s environment is onewhere good talent has noboundaries. Platforms such ascoding contests will helpindividual coders to make amark. This is also a goodopportunity for individuals toassess their own strengths,” saidNitinchandra Shende, head,Talent Management, PersistentSystems Ltd.
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(DE)CODING THE NEW AGE BRANDING &ENGAGEMENT MANTRAEmergence of Coding Contests
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Trends
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Cover Story
According to a recent TimesJobs.com survey, over 85 per cent of surveyedemployers plan to use coding contests for branding and employee engagementin the future. Organisations believe that these contests not only help them inassessing their own talent base but also position them as a place where talent isnurtured, encouraged and valued.
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Trends
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Highlights
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Coding contests are believed to be ahighly effective branding andengagement tool. As a branding tool
it is time and cost effective, said 57 per cent of the employers in aTimesJobs.com survey.
Remaining 43 per cent believe that it has ahigher reach and greater impact comparedto other traditional branding tools, since itis not an explicit marketing tool.
Coding contests have double benefits ofbeing both a branding and an employeeengagement platform. As an employeeengagement tool it is found to enhance thecreativity of participating employees,believe 40 per cent of the surveyedorganisations.
Employers reasoned that as theparticipating employees take upchallenges in a competitive environment
they think of new ways of doingthings/solving problems which enhancestheir creativity. Real time challenges bringout the best in every participant thus,helping in enhancing the overallproductivity and output.
Nearly 26 per cent of organisations feelthat it is a strong training anddevelopment tool. It provides an openclassroom where employees learn fromeach other.
Such contests drive employees to take theinitiative to learn and upskill themselvesto perform better next time, without anyintervention by the organisation.
Today, since branding and engagement are the focus areas of organisations, coding contests offer the much neededsolution to address these crucial aspects,at no/minimal cost.
The biggest limitation of codingcontests is that they do not assessother significant aspects in an
employee, pointed out 37 per cent of thesurveyed employers. This includes softskills such as communication skills andteam work.
Soft skills are deemed essential by mostorganisations these days. This has beenindicated by employers across sectors invarious TimesJobs.com studies.
Coding contests are meant to unleash thetechnical expertise of an employee, butother crucial work aspects andbehavioural factors are overlooked.
The TimesJobs.com study pointed out thatcreating a coding contest is a challenge.
Nearly 29 per cent of the respondentsbelieve that since many factors contributeto the effective planning andimplementation of a coding contest(including user friendly interface,engaging and catchy theme, simpleprocess), the task is quite taxing.
If the challenge is too complicated it mayresult in lower participation and if it is toosimple it loses its basic purpose.Developing an ideal programme is themost crucial aspect of designing andimplementing a coding contest.
The initial stages of planning andexecution are the most crucial in decidingthe final outcome of the coding contestand thus, are most challenging.
Benefits of Coding Contests
Nearly 77 per cent of the employers believethat coding contests are a strong talentassessment tool, according to the
TimesJobs.com survey.
Since the process takes place in a liveenvironment, the assessment is real time andthus, comparatively more logical and valuable,believe experts.
This kind of assessment provides an instantinsight into the current status and extent ofknowledge and skills of individual employees. Itfurther helps in understanding the training anddevelopment needs of each. It also acts as an
effective pre-hire assessment tool, especially fortechnical positions. It provides an insight intohow an individual will fit into a specific job byidentifying their thinking and reasoning stylesand their problem solving turnaround time.
Assessments through coding contests enhancesthe hiring process by adding quantitative data toa typically unquantifiable practice. Contestscores and rankings serve as benchmarks toassess talent, especially in core technical areas.
However, 20 per cent respondents also said thatthe assessment process in such cases was timeconsuming.
Limitations of Coding Contests
What are the key benefits of usingcoding contests for branding and
employee engagement?
As an Assessment Tool Are codingcontests a strongtalent assessment
tool?
77%YES
NO
23%
What is the key limitationof coding contests?
Overlooks other relevant skills (soft skills - team/communication skills)
Conceptualisation is a challenge (has to be user friendly, engaging and catchy)
Assessment is time consuming
Limited scope (in terms of profile - can use it only to hire programmers/tech staff)
37%
29%
20%
14%
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ObjectiveGood employees are an asset toevery company. However,finding good ones is like lookingfor a needle in a haystack. It isalso equally important for anorganistaion to become a brandof choice to work for.
Branding is pivotal to anybusiness. The increasing globalshortage of talent driven byageing population, increasedmobility of workers, migration,declining fertility rate,technological advances and anincrease in culture diversity inorganisations are some reasonsfor increasing focus on employerbranding.
Amazon approached TechGigwith an aim to hire great (not
just good) software developers.Amazon sought candidates whohad a minimum 1 yearexperience in softwaredevelopment.
SolutionAmazon had been exploringways to engage with ITprofessionals to create brandawareness among candidates tobecome the ‘workplace ofchoice’. It had been working onbrand building activities to lureand engage the top IT expertsaround the country so theycould foresee their career withAmazon. Contests are one of themost important tools forcreating buzz and engaging thecommunity. They allow directengagement of audience and
deepens the connect with thebrand on a higher level.
Keeping the above in mind,Amazon decided to launch acontest on TechGig.com - ‘NinjaCoder Challenge’. It waslaunched on 19 Oct 2013. Thiscontest was open to all softwaredevelopers in India and was heldin eight languages: C, C++, C#,PHP, Java, VB.NET, Perl &Python.
Amazon faced a difficultproblem with this contest. Thecontest had three levels. Thefirst level had coding & MCQsand was conducted online byTechGig. It was open for twodays. The application had a livecoding environment where onecould code and compile the code.The other two levels wereconducted by Amazon itself.
StatisticsThe contest saw more than 3660submissions of codes, submittedby over 3650 IT candidates. Outof over 8000 registered users, 60 per cent users quit beforesubmitting as the difficulty level
was very high. The contest wastargeted towards a broad level soparticipants were more from the 1-7 years of experience.However, people who solved allthe problems correctly weremajorly in the experience range of 6-8+ years. Of these 50 per cent of the respondentshad upto 2 years of experience.
The maximum number ofcontestants were from Infosysfollowed by TCS and Samsung.The contest had maximumparticipation from Bangaloreand Hyderabad. Amazon gaveaway Kindle Fire to the firstthree winners and anopportunity for a job interviewwith Amazon.
FeedbackOverall, the Ninja CoderChallenge stood-out as adifferent offering from Amazonto target top developers andbecame a brand of choiceamong techies. Amazon couldfind 247 amazing developersthrough this method for thesubsequent rounds.
The Amazon Experience
Case Study
ObjectiveCapgemini has so far organisedfour contests on Facebook,which were launched on 5 Apr 2013 and were live forthree weeks. The first one was acoding challenge which washeld in four languages - C, C++,C#, PHP and Java and had fivelevels.The contest saw morethan 20,000 submissions ofcodes, submitted by over 16,000IT candidates.
SolutionThe contest had one questionper level. Each question was of100 marks. The application had alive coding environment whereone could code and compile thecode. A total of 10 test caseswere used to score the codingproblems. Each test case carried10 marks with equal weightage.The total of all the test caseswas 100 marks.
Every user got maximum twoattempts at every level. The finalscore for that level was taken asthe highest score of both theattempts. The duration of each
attempt was 24 hours. Oneneeded to score a minimum of10 marks to move to the nextlevel. There were five levels inthe coding contest.
The second contest was amultiple choice test ontechnology related questions,and was again divided into fivelevels. The contest saw morethan 19,000 submissions ofcodes, submitted by over 15,000IT candidates. There were 25 multiple choice questions in
every level and one mark wasallotted for each correct answer.There was no negative marking.
The third contest was again amultiple choice test onquestions related to BusinessIntelligence (BI). This wasdivided into two levels andincluded BI tools such as SAS,Teradata and Informatica. Thecontest saw more than 2500submissions of codes, submittedby over 2,000 IT candidates.
The fourth contest was also amultiple choice test onquestions related to the ITInfrastructure services and wasdivided into two levels. Thecontest saw more than 3000submissions of codes, submittedby over 2,500 IT candidates.There were two levels in eachcontest and 25 questions inevery level. One mark wasallotted for each correct answer.
Across all levels, the winner wasone who scored the maximummarks in both levels, combined.In the event of a tie, the persontaking lesser time was declaredthe winner.
All the contests were run forthree weeks and saw not onlycontestants taking part, but alsosharing the contests with theirfellow techies.
StatisticsThe contest was targetedtowards a broad level, so theparticipants were within the 0-4 years of experience.However, people who solved allthe problems correctly weremajorly in the experience rangeof 6-8+ years.
FeedbackThe maximum number ofcontestants came from TCSfollowed by CTS and Infosys.Since the contest was open toCapgemini employees as well,there was a lot of participationfrom them as well.
Prizes ranged from Ipads totablets for the top three winners and gift vouchers for the early bird winners. To increaseparticipation, Capgemini alsooffered prizes for referrals totheir employees.
The Capgemini Challenge
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Coding Contests as Employee Engagement andRetention Strategy
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Rethinking StrategyIn a generation that is sociallydynamic, it is important tounderstand how equipped arebusiness and organisations, tocater to employee expectationsin order to deliver qualityoutcome.
The current generation isforcing businesses to re-thinktheir strategies due to theirenergy, their social network and their tech-savvy culture.
Thus, it becomes necessary toengage in critical employee-centric actions for motivation,engagement, collaboration,retention and performance.
In a typical work environment,it is observed that employees areunder-engaged. This is truedespite employees seeming over-worked with customerdeliverables and deadlines.
Acknowledging the differencebetween a disengaged and anengaged workforce and workingtowards the latter is crucial forbusiness success.
How should an organisationstrike a balance? Fewcompanies, have adoptedgamification portals andcollaboration and communityforums to nurture healthycompetition, habits ofexcellence and also build aculture of knowledge sharingand transfer.
Tech companies have beenchallenging software engineersand developers to becomecompetitive in their jobs,showcasing their technical andcreative skills.
Programming contests havebeen one such tool – whereemployees are encouraged toparticipate and develop creativesolutions which are tested foroptimisation, execution time,complexity, error handling andother such parameters.
New engagementplatformsHow are coding contests animportant tool for employeeengagement and retention?
Gone are the days whereemployee engagementtechniques only involveexcursions, outings, parties and events.
Organisations are nowleveraging the intellect andenergy of the younger and morecreative talent pool by openingplatforms to the developmentcommunity at large.
This open approach encouragesindividual developers andcompanies to innovate andcreate products that solveproblems and issues whichmight not surface in theconventional interactions ofthose companies’ workforces.
The open approach not onlymotivates the users of theplatforms, it also createssubstantial value for theplatform and subsequently forthe platform owner itself.
It is imperative to understandthat employees are not cogs inthe giant IT machinery. Suchcontests help them to identifyfree form ways of developing
solutions, which will pave theway for an engaging workculture in the larger scheme ofthings.
The focus on developing anengaged workforce as a means ofimproving overall businessperformance is hardly a newconcept.
But an engaged workforce thatviews such contests as careerdevelopment/ advancementopportunities act as influencersto the organisation’s success.
In most cases, they also act as aplatform to achieve the much-needed technical aspirationsamong skilled professionals.
Causes of disengagement in theworkforce are aplenty and theonus is on the organisation toimplement strategies thatenable individual jobsatisfaction and ensurecommitment to the employees.
After all, a talented and engagedworkforce is to an organisation’sbest advantage.
Rajeeb manages the HR and Administration functions at Q3 Technologies. He has an MBA in HR from IMTGhaziabad and has over 10 years experience in HR withsome of the leading IT organisations like ITIL, Aithent andKeane which is a CMMi Level 5 organisation. Prior tojoining Q3, Rajeeb was the assistant manager, HR atKeane India Ltd.
He has been instrumental in bringing about new andprogressive HR practices into the industry and to Q3. He has worked extensively on HRIS, PCMM and 360Degree Appraisals.
Rajeeb Biswas
director, HR and Administration, Q3 Technologies
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What are the keyconsiderations whiledesigning a coding contest?
Coding contests should bedesigned in a way thatknowledge of basic as well asadvanced coding concepts are
tested. The contest shouldinclude common, famouscomputer languages. The focusshould be on finding solutionsto problems rather thansuggesting syntax relatederrors. It should aim to test thelogical skills of candidates andunderstand their capabilities ofbuilding algorithms. Inaddition, questions should bebased on industry as well ascoding best practices.
What are the challenges inplanning and implementing acoding contest?
Location and time constraintsare the biggest challenges inplanning and implementing acoding contest. Participants ofcoding contest are spread acrossglobally and work in differenttime zones. This creates aproblem in organising a realtime challenge. To address theseissues, the initial rounds of acoding contest are kept online.This provides participants thebandwidth to take the initialtest as per their comfort.Another challenge is keepingplagiarism to a minimum. Thisis addressed by creating uniqueproblem statements and addingtime constraints.
How do you see the use andscope of coding contestsevolving in the future?
Coding contests are a great wayto showcase employee talent aswell as an organisation’stechnical capabilities. They alsoserve as powerful branding toolssince organisations are able toposition themselves as thoughtleaders and industry experts.Coding contests are a great toolto drive recruitment activitiesand help in building an effectivenetwork of technical experts.They also serve as greatopportunities for employees ofvarious organisations to cometogether and engage. In future,these coding contests mayevolve into crowd sourcedcoding platforms wheretechnical experts will gettogether and contribute tocreate better, enhancedsolutions for industry’s benefit.
Coding Contests
Boosting Brand Value Through Talent Engagement
Kulwinder Singhdirector - Global Marketing &Communication, SynechronTechnologies Pvt Ltd
Expert Speak
As director GlobalMarketing andCommunication,Kulwinder leadsSynechron'scorporate brand,marketing andintegratedcommunicationefforts globally. Hedrives thecompany's corporatepositioning, publicrelations, marketingcampaigns,employeecommunications andstrategic marketinginitiatives.
What are the key benefits ofa coding contest to anemployer and to a candidate?
Employer: A coding contesthelps drive employeeengagement internally throughan intellectually stimulating,competitive and fun filled workenvironment. While externallyin the employment market, itenables the organisation togenerate a talent pool of highlyproficient programmers whichit can easily tap into, wheneverrequired. It also doubles as abranding platform among thetalent pool in the hi-techindustry. It is basically baggingtwo birds with one stone.
Candidate: For a candidate it isan excellent platform toshowcase his talent inprogramming and achieve fameat a national level. If acandidate qualifies for higherrounds in the contest, he will bea hot pick for multipleemployers in the job market.Participation in the contest onlystrengthens his resume. Can wesay glory and success go hand-in-hand?
How do these contests helpimprove employeeengagement and retention?
Encouraging employees toparticipate in a coding contest isa very novel way of engagingand motivating talentedengineering professionals. Itsends a direct message that theorganisation prides itself inpromoting technical excellence,which is a major driver forretaining technical talent.
How can an organisation usethe scores/ranks to assessemployee performance?
Though the scores/ranks of acoding contest are not directindicators of an employee’sperformance, it acts as a pointerthat helps an organisation inidentifying areas of employeedevelopment that needattention. This will helporganisations to design variousprograms that will aid betterperformance by employees.
Shiva Sundardirector – Human ResourcesAkamai Technologies India Pvt. Ltd
Shiva Sundar is anaccomplishedHuman Resourceprofessional withover 20 years ofexperience inshaping the HRlandscape acrossvarious MNCs. He iscurrently thedirector of HumanResources at AkamaiTechnologies India. Prior to joiningAkamai he was withSamsung IndiaSoftware Operationsas head-HR, countryHR manager at NXPSemiconductors andsenior manager-HR at InfineonTechnologies.
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