With over 350,000 restaurants and over 20 million users, food delivery brand, DoorDash, had their work cut out for them in 2020. They were looking to ramp up hiring quickly, so they could continue connecting people with their communities during a worldwide pandemic.
“The fact that our University hiring goals kept doubling year-over-year, but the time it took to recruit candidates was cut in half really showcases HackerRank’s immediate value.” - Madison Patino, Program Manager, University Recruiting at DoorDash
Challenge: Scale hiring efforts while maintaining a pipeline of high-quality candidates
Before HackerRank, DoorDash struggled to scale University hiring while maintaining the extremely manual process of sourcing candidates. This included everything from attending in-person career fairs for sourcing candidates to conducting screenings to assess who should move forward.
“The entire process was very manual and difficult to sustain as we planned to hire more and more each year,” says Madison. “We needed a tool that not only integrated with the tools we were already using but could cut down on the manual steps required to get top-quality candidates through the door.”
Solution: Partner with HackerRank to reach their aggressive University hiring goals 2x faster
For the past 3 years, DoorDash has been doubling its hiring targets every year. When the pandemic hit, many companies halted their hiring efforts. DoorDash accelerated theirs.
Madison and the engineering team heavily rely on HackerRank Interview for assessing candidate qualifications.
“Pretty much every onsite stage that involves technical work is utilizing HackerRank Interview. That’s for any role from an intern all the way up to some of our more senior levels,” says Madison.
This level of scalability was also possible because of HackerRank’s ability to automate the sourcing process and cut down on hours needed from the engineering team. With HackerRank, Madison’s team can quickly and effectively weed through a high volume of candidates and identify who’s qualified to move to the next stage.
“At the end of the day, it’s all about skills,” says Madison. “HackerRank takes the top of funnel candidates and identifies those rockstars really efficiently. That’s really what gives engineers and even recruiters their time back so they can focus on other things while staying competitive with hiring.”
Enhancing the candidate experience
DoorDash believes the hiring experience should be seamless for both interviewee and interviewer—regardless of the outcome.
“We always have the mindset that even if a candidate doesn't receive an offer from us, we want them to have a good experience. HackerRank makes this communication process very seamless for candidates,” says Madison. “I also believe as a lot more companies are utilizing HackerRank, it’s more familiar and a less scary first step for the candidates.”
Evaluating the fairness of assessments
HackerRank helped the DoorDash hiring team not only streamline and automate the hiring process but identify the gaps and areas for improvement.
HackerRank data provides DoorDash with actionable insights on how they could improve their assessments to better evaluate the level of skill set they’re looking for.
“We took a look at the data in HackerRank and explored the distribution of test scores to better understand the fairness of our tests,” says Madison. “The data from HackerRank is really helpful in understanding which questions are extremely difficult and which ones are too easy. From there, we can make adjustments to ensure we are always evaluating candidates based on their skill set over everything else.”
Eliminating biases in the interview process
HackerRank helps DoorDash eliminate bias during the interview process by having candidates go through an initial screening that solely focuses on assessing their skills.
“For us, the biggest driver in adopting a system, like HackerRank, is it really sets everyone up for success on the same playing field,” says Madison. “We can focus on their work and their skills rather than something cosmetic—like the style of font they used. There are biases that can creep in even when you don’t expect them to. Whereas, with HackerRank, we’re simply assessing who has the correct skills to be successful in this role.”
Madison suggests prioritizing skills to find the best candidates. "You need to make sure you are looking through a variety of sources for talent, but at the end of the day, it’s about skills. If your primary focus is on the skills required to do the job, you will find the best people for your team," says Madison.
