Most tech professionals are upbeat about taking part in coding contests to showcase their skills and bag jobs while for employers, codeathons have become a great publicity branding and hiring tool
May 24, 2016: Coding contests or codeathons have gained popularity among top professionals seeking career growth as well as employers in the tech domain in India. While these competitions have emerged as one of the most effective ways for organizations to access top technology talent, for professionals, these act as a way to up-skill, get recognition, build a personal brand and bag better jobs.
"Fair and unbiased evaluation of an individual’s skills and talents ensures a truly meritocratic organization – Codeathons are one of the most effective ways to ascertain expertise and fluency levels among IT professionals irrespective of their rank or seniority. Through our TechGig codeathons, we find employers are continually surprised to discover hidden talent within their organizations – these talents, once recognized, go on develop their employer’s brands as great places to work, creating win-win situations," says Nilanjan Roy, Head of Strategy, Times Business Solutions.
The popularity of such competitions can be estimated from the fact that last year’s TechGig Code Gladiators created a national record of being the largest such event in India with participation of over 80,000 coders from across India and the world. When coupled with the fact that TechGig Code Gladiators 2016 is going to break this record with participations of over 1,43,000 coders.
In order to better understand this growing popularity, TechGig.com took a deep dive study into the growing lure and usefulness of codeathons with inputs from 900 IT employees and 450 employers to understand their perspectives.
According to the survey of employees, nearly 40% said they have participated in codeathons at some point in their career. Of these, 55% respondents were male and 35% were female.
Employers also shared similar sentiments on participation level of candidates, with 38% employers claiming that their techies are enthusiastic about participating in such contests. Nearly 42% organizations termed the level of participation of employees in their coding contests as satisfactory.
While the participation ratio may be skewed towards male professionals, enthusiasm is picking up among female coders too with the growing popularity of special codeathons such as TechGig Geek Goddess that highlight their potential and achievements.
Corporate codeathons are the most popular type of coding contests, according to 40% employees and 51% employers. These contests offer career advancement opportunities as well as include internal gatherings of employees to develop new products.
Niche code-a-thons that offer platforms for development of mobile apps and operating system variations and upgrading of web and video games are the second-most preferred type of contests by nearly 30% employees.
For employers, language & framework codeathons, where participants develop applications in specified programming languages or frameworks such as JavaScript or HTML5, hold the second spot.
Most (33%) employees said that the desire to learn and upskill is the biggest reason for them to participate in codeathons while 26% said recognition among peers, seniors and industry leaders were the key reasons to get into these contests, according to respondents of the TechGig study.
About 20% respondents said participating in codeathons helped them unlock job opportunities. Nearly 30% participants claimed to have received job offers based on their performance in codeathons, the TechGig study reveals.
For employers, branding is the most obvious benefit of codeathons. Nearly 36% employers said coding contests help build and strengthen organizational brands and visibility. Besides, 32% said it helps put in place a better recruitment process.
Nearly 22% organizations said codeathons offer an innovative platform to engage employees in the long run while 10% voted for the inventiveness these contests bring to the table.
Nearly 48% employers said that 5-10% participants receive job offers through codeathons while 38% said that on an average, up to 5% participants find new opportunities due to these contests.
Asked if they are willing to participate in codeathons in the future, 65% employees said yes. Also, nearly 90% employers stated that there should be more codeathons.
Taking the cue from these feedbacks, TechGig conducts hundreds of coding contests every year and currently, the Record breaking TechGig Code Gladiators 2016 is underway with the Grand Finale being a LIVE Event in Delhi NCR– where the Top 125 coders from the 143000 participants will battle it out face to face on May 27, 2016.
Stay tuned to http://www.techgig.com/codegladiators for live updates!
The complete codeathon survey can be downloaded here – http://content.timesjobs.com/docs/TJNewsletterMay2016.pdf
About TechGig.com:
TechGig.com is a culmination of everything related to technology, a platform exclusively for IT professionals to synergize, share, exchange ideas, facts and information as well as showcase their work and express their views on the vast repertoire that the IT industry encompasses. Garnering cutting edge views, reviews and news, jobs as well as providing a podium for connecting with your colleagues, peers are the mainstay of TechGig.com. The TechGig network is operated by Times Business Solutions – a Division of Times Internet Ltd.