Want More Diversity In Silicon Valley? Offer An Objective Skills Test

It’s no secret women are outnumbered by men in Silicon Valley, but is a skills assessment the key to recruiting a more diverse workforce? It certainly helped Cynthia. After deciding she wanted to a career change, Cynthia learned Python (a programming language), attended programming bootcamp and began her job search. It might have been difficult for Cynthia to get a foot in the door at a technology startup without any previous software engineering experience, but she aced a programming test and got a job offer.

To land a Silicon Valley software development spot, prospective candidates typically have to jump several hurdles—all of which are potentially fraught with bias. And it’s not just gender bias, but other misconceptions about the qualities of good programmers can creep into the process. CodeSignal, a Silicon Valley tech firm, thinks they have the solution for reducing this bias. They developed a standardized test, like an SAT for programmers, to screen software engineering candidates. CodeSignal’s technical assessment is called Certify, and they believe Certify provides an accurate and objective measure of prospective candidates’ coding ability.

In fact, CodeSignal uses Certify in their own hiring process, and when Cynthia took it, her score was one of the highest they had recorded. Shortly after, CodeSignal brought her on board.

The Bias In the Résumé  Screening Process Is Eliminated

The Certify test gives a chance to candidates like Cynthia that might get overlooked due to biases in the traditional hiring process. In the traditional hiring process, recruiters must decide who gets invited for an interview, and often they only have a résumé to judge their candidates. Those candidates with friends advocating for them inside the company often get moved to the top of the résumé pile. Otherwise, recruiters often use experience and education as proxies for skills. Those candidates that didn’t attend the top schools, haven’t accumulated an impressive work history or don’t fit the typical mold of a programmer can get passed over.

With the skills test, the screening process is completely removed from the process, eliminating the bias that comes with it. Every single candidate who applies for a job is invited to take the test, and the best potential programmers are identified. Bias can’t creep into the screening process if only the test’s top performers are brought in for the next round of interviews. Those candidates from a community college have the same shot at getting in the door as an MIT grad.

Bias In The Interview Is Reduced

Traditionally, a candidate’s technology skills are assessed by an interviewer, but it’s easy for unconscious bias to creep in to these assessments too. CodeSignal’s co-founder, Sophia Baik believes employees tend to confirm their own expectations of candidates in technical interviews. She describes how an interviewer who expects a candidate to do well may offer hints to help the candidate complete the technical problems posed during the interview. In the end, the candidate walks away with a positive review. “This candidate was a little nervous, but I believe he can do the job,” she says the reviewer may conclude.

Another candidate who receives the exact same hints and provides the exact same answers may end up with negative reviews if the interviewer had low expectations for the candidate. “I had to hold her hand the whole way through the process,” might be this candidate’s evaluation. Objective tests help eliminate this bias as well, by reducing or eliminating the assessments that need to be conducted in an interview format.

Biased Perceptions About Female Coders Are Reduced

Despite the fact that women score just as well as men on the coding test, misperceptions about female coders persist. When organizations make it a priority to add more women to the ranks, employees can think that translates to a preference for hiring less qualified women over more qualified men. That’s not good for anyone. If hiring is based on test performance, this misperception vanishes. Baik says, “With the test, it’s super clear that we’re not lowering the bar when female engineers are hired, so coworkers are not going to question the ability of their female colleagues.”

Baik also believes using an objective skills assessment can help boost women’s confidence, because female employees realize they’re being hired because they’re the best candidates—and not because of their gender. She explains, “It gives them confidence in their own skills. I think a lot of women are like myself—unless I see objective evidence that I’m good, I’m not going to talk about it. I’m not going to demand higher pay. But objective results from a test can be an eye-opener.  Seeing their scores in the top 5% or 10% provides women a strong basis to ask for a promotion or to negotiate a higher starting salary.” 

Gender equality researcher Alison Wynn spent a year studying a Silicon Valley technology company’s efforts to recruit and retain more women. The problem she found was the current thinking about diversity fails to hold the organization responsible for the role it plays in causing the problem. She describes, “past research shows that organizations contribute to inequality in varied ways: through referral hiring that leads to narrow pipelines of candidates from similar backgrounds; through subjective evaluation criteria that open the door to bias during performance evaluations; and through a lack of transparency and accountability in pay decisions that leads to unfairness in who gets rewarded.” One of the actionable suggestions that Wynn provides for tech organizations seeking to add more women is replacing résumé screens with more objective coding tests.

Organizations need to stop putting the blame elsewhere and start taking steps to create change within. Adopting objective criteria for hiring is one good place to start.