Most recruiters are challenged when it comes to finding the best talents for highly technical jobs like computer programming. That's mainly because they don't know how to evaluate programming skills like a professional. If you are one of them and you need help assessing your IT candidates, then be sure to keep these tips in mind:

• Define the job requirements
  Before you start assessing programming skills like a professional, you need to identify the specific skills to be evaluated. The requirements will be different for every IT role, so make sure to discuss the matter with the manager or the supervisor. Who is your ideal candidate? How much experience should he or she have to be considered for the position? Besides the technical skills, it's also good to pinpoint soft skills and attributes that your company is looking for in a talent.

• Use online candidate assessment tools
  Online candidate assessment tools offer a convenient way to administer exams. They also eliminate human errors and thus guarantee the accuracy of results. Just make sure that the assessment tools you choose will be able to test the specific programming skills that you require or evaluate the candidates' language knowledge and expertise.

• Consider using online programming challenges
  These platforms can also be designed for your business's sole use to test programming skills like a professional. The online programming challenges provide different coding tests for different programming languages. You can adjust certain features (such as the difficulty level and the language) better to check your candidates' technical know-how and problem-solving capabilities.

Did you know recruiters use programming or coding challenge websites as sources of top-caliber candidates? They follow the leader-boards to see the programmers who have high ratings and scores in their challenges. Some recruiters or companies will even run their competitions with prizes to entice more professionals.