A No Resume Hiring Process

Leading video games and entertainment company IGN has initiated its second annual Code-Foo Challenge in an effort to find coding talent with a strict “no resumes allowed” hiring approach. The six-week program offers programmers the opportunity to learn coding languages and work on live engineering projects under the tutelage of leading industry talent, at IGN’s expense. While the traditional barriers to employment, namely the resume, are removed with Code-Foo, candidates must submit a written “statement of passion” to IGN and demonstrate their coding proficiency on four programming challenge questions.

“The average age someone learns to code is 13.4, so why should we care what credentials they have? We want to find people who are passionate about us, and look at their actual work – not their resume,” said Roy Bahat, President of IGN.

The program opens up new opportunities for job seekers located in areas with limited employment opportunities and who may not possess the secondary education typically required for technical employment. Of the 75,000 people who viewed the application in 2011, 104 people completed the challenges and 30 individuals were selected to participate in the program. Of that group, eight were hired by IGN as full-time employees. Only half had obtained a college degree.

The application deadline for the 2012 challenge is April 30th and qualifying applicants will be notified of their acceptance into the program by May 18^th.