Software Engineer Igor Kopanev with over 10 years of experience named the most common problem in hiring programmers this year, which has a negative impact on both other candidates and people involved in the search process. The IT specialist says that he has "almost a dozen such candidates for one normal one over the past month."
Software Engineer Igor Kopanev with over 10 years of experience named the most common problem in hiring programmers this year, which has a negative impact on both other candidates and people involved in the search process. The IT specialist says that he has "almost a dozen such candidates for one normal one over the past month."
And this problem lies in the fact that there are a lot of IT professionals with fake experience in the IT market.
"This is not just some isolated case, Djinni is now filled with candidates who list 3-5 years of experience in various companies on LinkedIn, but when they come to the interview, they can't even write a line of Python code (no exaggeration, they really can't create a dict).
"What's interesting is that you warn them that there will be a short live coding session at the interview, of course some drop out, but most go to the interview with the hope of something," Igor Kopanev wrote on LinkedIn.
Aitivets emphasizes that it is acceptable to have no programming experience if you are a junior or trainee. But it is “not normal to have no experience and say that you have it,” writes Software Engineer.
As an example, Kopanev shared a case: "A candidate comes, let's say his name is Mykola. He writes down 3 years of experience in one of the top outsourcing companies in Ukraine, and another year in some no-name company. Before the interview, we do a background check on a well-known company - and they haven't even heard of him there. During the interview, he looks at the task, tries to generate something via chatgpt (we allow this), but can't even understand what kind of code is in front of him :) well, everything is clear here. For the finale, I ask how it was working at the top outsourcing company and whether I can contact someone for feedback, and he replies, "I don't remember anyone from anywhere, it was almost a year ago" :) a day later, my dev sends me a link to his LinkedIn, and there it's no longer a top outsourcing company in terms of experience, but some no-name company."
Such cases have a negative impact on both sides of the hiring process:
" We solve this problem through a live coding session at the interview. By the way, we start with this. We talk very briefly about the company, and then we start writing code, we are programmers, we should be able to write code, right?", - said Kopanev. But he does not know how to solve this problem on a more global level, perhaps it should be done at the level of job search platforms.
The Software Engineer also explained how live coding works: a purely practical task is given, but not a real one.
“There is a list of logs, and we need to analyze them, perform a couple of tasks. Work with standard data types in Python and with standard libraries. And you can also Google and use AI agents. We look at the train of thought and questions, what code the person gave as a result, whether the code fulfills the task, and whether this code can be oriented, maintained, and changed. In general, we try to simulate the work process. If it is OK, then we move on to questions about experience, and from the person’s experience we start digging into technology to understand how deep and wide they are groping,” explains Kopanev.
This problem was also confirmed by Volodymyr Okhotyuk, Recruitment Company Owner and former Software Engineer: "We encounter fakes of various levels every day, from inflated swindlers, helpers in conversations, and to decoys who are working out whether to pass an interview or provide a reference. We have developed a number of checklists for each stage and also do employment verification at the early stages."
"I failed 2-3 live coding interviews 3 years ago, with 5 years of experience. I won't apply for such vacancies again," wrote Fullstack Web Developer at Laravel Volodymyr Yefremov.
“Oh, I had experience in live coding. And what, I provided several solution options, but there was another option, as it turned out, and it influenced the decision to take me or not. In the end — no! And I tested this solution and gave feedback on it, that it was too slow and was almost never used. That's it!”, — Fullstack PHP Developer Oleksandr B.
“I have a lot of experience and I can write any medium-sized project for you from scratch. But I couldn’t write a forex cycle in live coding. Literally. Then, after n sessions and trainings, I started to pass live coding quite well. Recently, I passed 1.5 hours of pure live code with flying colors. Live coding is a lot of stress and not everyone passes it,” — Senior Front-End Developer Artem Bohdan.
"In my opinion, live coding is one of the best options for testing knowledge. Unfortunately, I only had 2 live coding interviews. Both were successful and I have warm memories of the interviewers I worked with later," — Senior .Net Developer Volodymyr Babich.
