Executive summary

Samsung launched a series of online programming challenges on ChallengeRocket to regularly scan the market, and identify top matching candidates. 

This way Company managed to:

• attract the most ambitious and competitive developers,
• reach new people not available earlier,
• see their skills and
• hire better talent!  

At Samsung we're always looking for the brightest talent. And talent is not always obvious. With ChallengeRocket we could source those rising programming stars and at the same time get unbiased insights into their skills.

Initiative generated big buzz and managed to attract new amazing candidates.

Introduction. Goals & challenges

Samsung was looking for a new innovative & effective way to show their Employer Brand and build a pipeline of pre-assessed coding candidates for present and future R&D job openings. 

Part 1: Candidate attraction

Goal: Samsung R&D was looking for new exceptional tech talent to join their teams in Poland.

Problem: Unfortunately regular job ads are often not enough to attract exceptional people. Not in 2021. A huge number of great candidates do not browse job boards at all! 

Samsung R&D wanted something different and unconventional to attract those talents who would not apply otherwise.

Key observation: The most talented young candidates are open to creative ways to show off their talent! They also love to compete.

Solution idea: The idea was to leverage this competitive nature of the best software developers and run a series of online coding challenges to get access to better talent. 

Keep reading to learn more about how we did it with #SkillChallenges!

Part 2: Candidate pre-assessment

Goal: Samsung also wanted to get better insights into the skills of new candidates to make sure they talk to the right fits only.

Problem: The CV document itself is often not a good predictor of a candidate's potential. Many people have amazing talent but no paper to back it up.

The initial assessment process can be long, expensive and biased.

Key observation: We can learn more about candidates observing their performance in online programming Challenges that the company was running. 

Solution idea: Coding participants are automatically pre-assessed with ChallengeRocket code checker (automatic code scoring).

Automatic ranking of top challenge performers indicates who is top fit and should be invited for the final round of interview. 

Instant feedback. Both recruiters and candidates can see immediately who they rank against each other.

What we did. Let’s dive deeper

We set up eight dedicated SkillChallenges in the field of algorithms and NLP to help select IT specialists who could potentially join Samsung's R&D team in Warsaw or Krakow. 

1. Everyone could come to the dedicated page of the challenge and show their talent by solving the algorithmic tasks prepared by Samsung. 

You may think of candidates showing their true potential by competing with each other in real-time coding tournaments or virtual code hackathons.

2. The system automatically evaluated the participants (automatic code scoring and real-time ranking). The best participants were distinguished, rewarded and invited to the second recruitment round.

Candidate journey

Candidates can still apply to jobs directly. But they can also jump-start their career if additionally they manage to demonstrate their coding potential and prove that they stand out against their peers.

Branding

The implementation of the Samsung Algorithmic Challenge also included building the commitment and activity of potential candidates around the brand by publishing the dedicated Samsung Candidate Hub, i.e. a place where candidates can find new development opportunities and have the opportunity to get to know the employer's brand better.

Results

The talent shortage is the biggest challenge in employment today. We helped Samsung to stand out as an employer brand, attract exceptional talent and help to better understand their tech potential. 

With online SkillChallenges connected to our job ads we can attract the most ambitious qualified candidates, see their performance, and be more confident in our decision-making process.

The most important effects of the Samsung Algorithmic Challenge:

• We engaged over 380 programmers who showed their skills in algorithmics and NLP and joined the community gathered around the Samsung brand.
• 9 specialists demonstrated an exceptional level of skills in the field of algorithmics and NLP and obtained a score of 100% in at least one of the SkillChallenges (with a high level of difficulty!).

Additionally:

• We reached 12,689 people who became interested in the Samsung Algorithmic Challenge and viewed the page with the challenges, thus getting to know the brand's activities better.
• The individual pages of eight SkillChallenges had a total of 10,255 visits within a month, drawing the attention of candidates to interesting and unusual tasks.
• We obtained 604 registrations for individual challenges for programmers, and 70% of these participants started solving tasks that allowed Samsung to gain insight into their skills in the area of algorithmics and NLP.
• 80% of participants were interested in joining the recruitment process, which is a pool of candidates for current and future recruitments at Samsung.

Overall in our view ChallengeRocket superseded rival products in terms of approach, features, quality and dedicated technical support. Definitely recommend it!

Why does it work?

• Many people, especially in IT, are ambitious people - they are naturally motivated by challenges and solving difficult problems. 
• It's a new way to interact with candidates that grabs attention.
• It’s more fair with unbiased computer assessment.
• It’s fun for candidates!

It was very important for us to make it a fun and rewarding experience for our candidates and ChallengeRocket was a great fit here. It allowed participants to show off their talent and receive initial recruitment feedback instantly.

Additional value for candidates

Candidates get instant feedback. If they do well with coding challenges it means they are going to do fine at onsite interviews as well! They may get this confidence or learn what skills they are missing.

Participation in the recruitment challenge increased my self-confidence. Now I know that despite previous fruitless job searches, my competences are sufficient to take up an interesting job and start my career in the technology industry.

See more stories like this

See how we helped brands to attract high-caliber active and passive candidates:

• See how to source over 350 contacts for hire as Java developers in only 2 months: EY GDS Poland Java Challenge case study
• Learn how to attract more than 2500 people within 1 month with a SAP recruitment offer: SAP Challenge by Bosch case study

Contact us and try out the ChallengeRocket platform - we will be more than happy to help you choose the options best tailored to your current needs.