Coding Simulators – The Right Tool to Hire The Right Coders

In coding simulator based assessments, candidates are asked to write code from scratch, and then the code is evaluated on various parameters. These tests are designed to not only to check common coding techniques, but also analytical, interpretational and holistic thinking skills.

Simulator-based tests create a real-time environment to check the candidates’ capability to work on real-life projects. Doing so gives you insights into the candidate’s skills and their problem-solving abilities; both extremely crucial for programmers. While MCQ based tests only focus on candidate’s knowledge of theories, the simulator-based test enables you to test candidates’ understanding of these concepts by requiring them to use these concepts in practical applications.

Mettl has conducted online tests for 100+ companies with 60,000+ candidates, and we have done some analysis on our end to present a few interesting insights.

It has been observed that the candidates who have performed well in technical MCQ based tests might not perform well in a simulator based test as well.  Over the years, we have seen poor correlations between the performance in MCQ based test and simulator-based tests.

Only 20-30% of the good performers in the MCQ test are also able to score well in coding tests. So, while most of the candidates recall programming concepts, however very few can apply them to real-world situations. The key here is recalling v/s understanding and application, and it is understanding and application that needs to be determined.

Simulator-based assessments enable you to filter out the very best candidates from the lot.  These assessments allow you to gain insight into the quality of code written by the candidate and answer lot many other questions

• Does the candidate know how to code?
• Does the candidate follow coding best practices?
• Is the candidate efficient enough at coding?

For the effective and valid evaluation of the candidates’ programming skills, the following parameters should be measured through coding simulators.

Following are the parameters:

• The Correctness of the Code:

  With an online coding assessment, you can design various test cases to check the correctness of the code, if the code runs all type of test cases like basic, corner, necessary, etc.

In Mettl we make sure that every question should have at least 10 to 12 tests cases covering from basic to boundary cases.

• Code Quality:

  Use of best practices as per industry standards in the code. In Mettl we use tools like ‘Static Code Analysis to check if the code adheres to the industry standards.

• Code Scalability: 

  Code complexity, Time complexity, CPU usage, Processing time, time taken to submit the final code.

 For different job profiles, different coding skill sets are required; for a trainee level, you might evaluate the candidate on basic programming fundamentals, but for a developer role you will also focus into coding style, code efficiency, data structures, etc. Different parameters measured through these simulators let you dig deep and evaluate the candidate’s coding skills are per the organization’s requirement.

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Using coding simulator based assessment enables you to identify candidates with strong coding skills, and also sharpen the identification, by simultaneously evaluating the code on various quality and efficiency parameters, which is not possible through manual intervention.  Automated assessments remove subjectivity from the evaluation process and provide detailed feedback of the candidate’s coding skills in a timely manner, resulting in a more efficient hiring process.