#33: Beyond Pedigree—How Assessments Are Democratizing Technical Recruiting

This week we welcome Vivek Ravisankar, CEO of HackerRank, to the podcast. Vivek co-founded HackerRank in 2012 with the mission of using skills assessments to match developers with the right jobs. Since then, the company has helped more than 2,000 organizations go beyond résumés and ‘pedigree’ to find talent with proven programming skills. Topics include: the advantages and limitations of using résumés in hiring for technical roles, the issues with relying on educational or career ‘pedigrees’ as proxies for technical skill, the biases introduced when screening based on measures like GPA, why software development has been one of the last fields to “digitize” its screening processes, the role of emotions in making hiring decisions, the hidden costs of communication when hiring a remote workforce, the meaning of culture and the implications for remote workforces, the necessary ingredients for creating a thriving tech eco-system, how a city’s “vibe” dictates which industries will thrive there, the attrition problem facing engineering departments, and the ways in which technology can enable career development within an organization. 

Om Podcasten

From generative AI, to DEI, the talent acquisition space has arguably never experienced a time of greater change. How will emerging technologies shape the recruiter and candidate experiences in the years to come? How is employer branding evolving from a “tactic” to a strategic asset that delivers value across the entire talent lifecycle? And what are the implications of all of this for making smart, data-driven decisions with limited advertising budgets?Each week we tackle these big questions and more with the industry’s leading voices as our guests. The Changing State of Talent Acquisition Podcast invites you to go beyond the same tired generalist voices and topics typical of “legacy” HR media and explore what emerging voices and unconventional thought leaders are saying about this dynamic time in our industry.