[Research] 2018 Student Developer Report by HackerRank

How do you identify young talent that will have the greatest impact?

For most companies, the standard practice is to target select, prestigious schools, invest in a prime spot during seasonal career fairs, and collect as many resumes as possible to build an entry-level talent pipeline. It’s tempting to look at blunt proxies—like GPAs and internships at brand name companies—to create a candidate  shortlist.

As someone who has been on both sides of the university recruiting table, I can tell you that this method is not sustainable. First off, in the age of digital transformation, the demand for developers won’t be able to keep up with such a narrow strategy. If everyone’s fighting for talent in the same pools of talent, hiring will be exponentially more difficult. Secondly, if your goal is to make strong hires, grades and alma mater aren’t reflective of true ability.

Back in college, my co-founder Hari Karunanidhi and I used to spend hours competing in coding contests. We had solid fundamentals and were really strong developers, but didn’t necessarily have the pedigree that recruiters were looking for.

I was fortunate that recruiters from Amazon happened to come to my campus for a coding competition that I was participating in—I was able to demonstrate my skills. Many other developers may not be as lucky.

It’s time to focus the conversation on skill. To dive deeper on understanding the state of student developer skills, we surveyed over 10,000 developers across universities worldwide on how they’re learning, what they’re learning, and what they look for in a job. For instance, we learned that even though 76% of tech students are pursuing a degree in computer science, 65% of all student developers say they are at least partially self-taught. And nearly one third of all developers said they’re completely self-taught.

Self-directed learning is the norm among developers; so when companies focus on hiring based on proven skill instead of prestigious degree or GPA, a massive pool of overlooked talent opens up.

We hope you find this useful as you prepare your next university recruiting season.

Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

Vivek Ravisankar
Co-founder & CEO
HackerRank