Ah, the interview process
A stressful event for all parties involved, especially depending on the gig. From personality questionnaires to homework assignments, it can at times be difficult to determine the best way to gauge a candidate’s capabilities, despite the skills listed on their resume.
And with coding this can be taxing. Cumbersome, even. Applicants from backgrounds aplenty, be it coding schools, university graduates, or self-taught wizards, what interviewers want to see are what applicants can do and how they think.
While Skype interviews themselves aren’t exactly new to the industry, but now candidates can be tested over Skype Interviews using a real-time code editor.
Real time skills test
According to the creator and Program Manager at Microsoft Skype Rene Brandel, “Interviews on Skype allows you to have a video call on top of a code editor that runs in your Microsoft Edge or Chrome browser (version 32 or above),” making the process much more streamlined.
You don’t need to sign up, so no more awkward fumbling around with your inbox trying to reset your Skype password or reinstalling the app, because neither are required. That’s right, no account creation or sign-up necessary.
Skype Interviews comes with three key features: In-browser video call, Live code execution, and Inline syntax highlighting.
The In-browser video call is pretty self-explanatory: you get to talk to and see someone’s face (and also make sure they’ve at least put on pants). The in-browser code editor also allows candidates to run their code and test the results for immediate feedback. And lastly the Inline syntax highlighting helps candidates avoid syntactic mistakes with real-time syntax highlighting for the following seven programming languages: C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Python, and Ruby, and according to Brandel, they are setting up a framework to easily add more languages.
Skype interviews
It’s pretty straightforward. Once you’re at Interviews on Skype you click “Start Interview” and you’ll greeted with a confirming “Your interview has been created” followed with a shareable link.
It’s a pretty cool concept. I can only hope that from the candidate’s end upon receiving the link they see instead an inviting: “Ready Player One.”
#LiveSkypeSkills
