Hey there :)
I'm a third year student who's starting to think about my final year project. I study computing and business so my brief is a little different to most CS degrees:
"An implementation project that addresses a real world business problem, and illustrates the student’s programming ability, technical knowledge, problem solving ability and self learning".
I came across this point in a video addressing the current (junior) SWE job market. Essentially, companies are being hit with a ton of applicants using AI generated projects, cover letters, resumes for their job listings. The biggest issue essentially being a general lack of trust in applicants - in resumes, projects and coding assessments. (mostly regarding junior/intern positions)
The current solution to this is coding assessments with platforms like HackerRank or LeetCode. These platforms are definitely valuable and important to the hiring process, but are still flawed and vulnerable to applicants using AI.
My current FYP idea is to address this issue in recruiting software developers through a a platform to improve trust in SWE applicants by analysing existing developer activity and metrics, rather than relying on artificial coding challenges.
The platform would work similarly to HackerRank or LeetCode but focus on verifying skills and knowledge through data and activity from platforms the applicant already uses, such as:
- GitHub/GitLab: Repositories, commits, pull requests, issues, discussions, stars.
- Stack Overflow: Questions, answers, comments, reputation.
- Hacker News: Posts, comments, activity.
- CodePen: Pens, comments, saved pens, templates.
- LinkedIn: Posts, comments, positions, endorsements.
- etc.
The collected data would be processed using a combination of algorithms for structured activity metrics, like number and frequency of commits, posts, comments etc. and llm's for analysing unstructured data, such as the content of comments, discussions, questions, etc. - verifying its authenticity.
The result would be a contextual summary of the applicant's skills, authenticity and engagement, helping employers make more informed decisions. Evaluating two main aspects:
- Authenticity: Verifying that the applicant’s work, activity, and contributions are genuine and not AI-generated.
- Skill/Ability: Seeing the applicant’s actual technical skills, coding ability, and community engagement.
This seems to help both the employer and applicant:
For employers, this builds trust by basing hiring decisions on real-world, verifiable contributions over artificial assessments. And for applicants it rewards genuine effort and collaboration while discouraging AI.
There's definitely some issues with this idea though. The initial ones I can think of are:
- Privacy / Consent / GDPR
- Bias towards applicants with publicly accessible activity
- API limits
This essentially boils down to the fact that it's much harder to fake a digital presence than it is to fake an online coding assessment.
TL:DR - An applicant verification platform that evaluates SWE applicants based on their existing contributions, activity, and discussions across platforms like GitHub, Stack Overflow, and LinkedIn - helping to reduce the issue of AI-generated resumes and projects, aiming to increase trust in the hiring process.
