TDD for Hiring: Crafting Precision in Recruitment

Hiring is broken. Vague job descriptions. Gut-feeling interviews. Misaligned expectations. It’s a mess that wastes time, money, and talent. But what if we treated hiring like software development? What if we applied Test-Driven Development (TDD) to build better specs and make hiring more precise and transparent?

The scorecard—a hiring tool that defines what success looks like—is already a step beyond generic job descriptions. But the next evolution is treating the scorecard like TDD for hiring. Here’s why it works:

1. Job-specific and company-alignment tests. Just as TDD allows for different tests per application module, we can create tests for specific roles (engineer, marketer) and alignment tests for cultural fit.

2. Iterative improvement with non-regression tests. TDD evolves with your application. Likewise, your hiring process should add new tests based on lessons from past hires—preventing old mistakes from repeating.

3. Clear, objective specs. Ambiguous job descriptions lead to misaligned hires. TDD-style tests bring clarity, removing guesswork and emotional bias. They define must-haves, nice-to-haves, and benchmarks explicitly.

4. Failing gracefully. Just like failed tests in code highlight issues to fix, hiring tests can show where candidates fall short without subjective judgment. Some failures might be warnings (like a linter); others are blockers.

Pseudocode for Job Spec Tests

Imagine defining a job in Go-like pseudocode:

package hiring

import "tests/cultural_fit"

type EngineerJob struct {
    Title        string
    Skills       []string
    Experience   int
    Alignment    []Test
    CoreTests    []Test
}

func NewEngineerJob() *EngineerJob {
    return &EngineerJob{
        Title:      "Software Engineer",
        Skills:     []string{"Go", "Git", "Microservices"},
        Experience: 3,
        Alignment:  []Test{cultural_fit.Teamwork, cultural_fit.LearningAgility},
        CoreTests:  []Test{CodeQualityTest, ProblemSolvingTest, DebuggingChallenge},
    }
}

func CodeQualityTest(candidate Candidate) bool {
    return candidate.SubmitCode("repo") && candidate.PassCodeReview()
}

func ProblemSolvingTest(candidate Candidate) bool {
    return candidate.Solve("complex algorithm challenge")
}

func DebuggingChallenge(candidate Candidate) bool {
    return candidate.FixBug("legacy system")
}

Monorepo Hierarchy for Hiring

Visualize a monorepo for all job specs. Each job links to reusable test templates and libraries, with a history of iterations and reviews. Here’s a basic hierarchy:

hiring/
├── templates/
│   ├── cultural_fit/
│   │   ├── teamwork_test.go
│   │   └── learning_agility_test.go
│   └── technical_skills/
│       ├── code_quality_test.go
│       └── debugging_challenge.go
├── jobs/
│   ├── engineer/
│   │   └── software_engineer.go
│   ├── marketing/
│   │   └── digital_marketer.go
│   └── content/
│       └── content_writer.go
└── utils/
    └── benchmarks.go

This system builds clarity and trust. Tests replace vague criteria with measurable outcomes. Reviews and history ensure transparency. Just like in coding, the process becomes iterative, collaborative, and precise.

By adopting TDD for hiring, we can turn the messy art of recruitment into a disciplined, efficient craft. And who wouldn’t want to fork that?

I’m currently still figuring out how the UX for this should be. I think I’ll experiment with something and probably update this blog post.