Your search for jobs ends with Hackathons!

If you are eagerly waiting to change your job, then it is time to put a full stop to your search. Hackathons is where your search ends. Though this term has been around for years but now it is coming in the media limelight. Irrespective of the myth attached to it, hackathons span across industries and are no longer exclusively reserved for coders and programmers.

Lately, it has been observed that a lot of IT companies are resorting to gaming for hiring, engagement, retention, and other HR related activities. However, there are few companies that are going beyond this and using hackathons to spot relevant skills. Indian recruiters describe hackathons as modern-day career fairs, which cut out the long-drawn testing and interview process.

It has been observed that such competitions help candidates to show their innovative ideas and coding skills at the same time. Companies like Persistent Systems, Infosys, Oracle, Facebook and many other organizations are using hackthons for similar purposes.

For instance, hackathons that were held by Facebook proved to be a strong reason behind all sorts of new features such as Facebook chat, internationalization, the type-ahead feature in search, the friend suggester, etc.

In addition to these hackathons are start-ups like HackerEarth that organizes hackthons during the year and tech companies hire developers from those hackthons. Companies are also looking at external competitions like coding contests, such as Code Gladiators, to find the right talent for their company. Along with giving a chance to working professionals, such competitions encourage recent graduates and non-working professionals to participate and showcase their skills.

There are start-ups like HackerEarth that organizes hackthons and tech companies hire developers from those hackthons. Companies are also looking at external competitions like coding contests, such as Code Gladiators, to find the right talent for their company. Along with giving a chance to working professionals, such competitions encourage recent graduates and non-working professionals to participate and showcase their skills.

Different Types of Hackathons:

Employee engagement Hackathons

Like many IT companies, Persistent Systems had also conducted series of hackathons. Apart from their internal hackathon ‘Semicolons’, Persistent conducts an internal event ‘iShare’ that helps generate employee engagement internally and inculcate an innovation led culture within the company. The event is essentially an internal technology conference showcasing Persistent teams’ grassroots strengths and fostering technical talent through visibility and recognition.  Persistent encourages all employees to participate and share their innovative experiences related to technology by setting up booths in various centers and conducting presentations. The event is held at an all India level and booths are set up at Pune, Goa, Nagpur and Hyderabad, while presentations are held via WebEx across India involving employees from all over the country added Dr. Pandurang Kamat, Chief Architect, Persistent Systems.

Women Hackathons 

The hackathon is being organized by the Anita Borg Institute (ABI), a non-profit organization focused on the advancement of women in computer science and engineering and sponsored by Accenture. The main objective of this hackathon is to code and work on ideas and projects that will have a social impact. 10,000 Startups (A Nasscom initiative) is the ecosystem partner for this initiative. The first round of the hackathon has also been conducted in Hyderabad, Madurai, New Delhi and Pune and the finals will be held at the largest technical conference for women in India – the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing India (GHCI) 2015 in Bangalore during 2-4 December, 2015.

For all details on the Tech for Good 2015 hackathon visit - http://gracehopper.org.in/tech-for-good-2015-hackathon/

Smart City Hackathon

To address the future of urbanization and the growing stress levels on the citizens living in metros, The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) 10,000 Startups along with Bengaluru City Police, Embarq India, HackerEarth and IBM, hosted a two-day hackathon ‘The Urban Hack’ on October 3^rd and 4^th 2015. This was first-ever smart city hackathon aimed at improving transportation, crime prevention and public safety through the use of technology.

Urban Hack was organized with an aim to use disruptive technology in order to reduce city’s traffic woes and increase public safety. Developers were invited to participate in the 24 hours coding marathon which was held both online and offline. The 10K Start-up Warehouse in Bengaluru hosted participants who wish to choose an offline venue, while HackerEarth hosted the online participants through its platform.

The participants of the hackathon got access to IBM’s cloud-based technologies and mentors for further guidance. The winners get to work closely with the Bengaluru city police to pilot the applications.  Apart from this, they also would get an opportunity to showcase their applications before seed investors and prominent VCs and win an opportunity to qualify for the NASSCOM 10k program.

Initially, this concept had to face difficulties in terms of HR acceptance against traditional recruiting process. But, now the wheel of tech recruiting is running with new pace. Many HR heads have understood its benefits like ability to bring in innovation, collaboration, problem-solving, etc.

It is an easy and a simpler way for recruiting heads as they don’t have to sit and spend their maximum time in searching for right the candidate, and at the same time it comes as a blessing for candidates those are applying for mainstream companies.