A smooth, fair, and professional assessment experience strengthens your employer brand and helps candidates perform at their best.

This guide explains how to prepare candidates for success, manage candidate support, and handle candidate issues efficiently and fairly.

Prepare candidates for success

A great candidate experience begins before the test or interview starts. Share the following resources with candidates before the test or interview to help them prepare:

• Getting Started with Tests 

• Getting Started with Interviews

These resources provide essential setup instructions to optimize performance, including:

• Browser compatibility

• Network stability

• Camera and microphone setup 

• System permissions for proctoring or IDE features

Encouraging candidates to review these resources beforehand helps prevent most technical issues and ensures a focused, disruption-free experience.

How HackerRank manages candidate support

HackerRank follows these key practices:

• Proactively monitor reports: HackerRank continuously monitors candidate reports to identify potential widespread or systemic issues that may affect multiple users. For updates on major platform-wide incidents, visit the HackerRank Status Page for real-time updates.

• Review escalated issues: The Support team reviews candidate tickets that report basic technical issues and test administration inquiries in real time, but investigates deeper issues only when your recruiter or hiring team escalates them.

  Note: When candidates contact HackerRank Support directly, the team assists with troubleshooting and records any technical findings that may indicate a broader platform issue. HackerRank Support does not provide real-time responses to all candidates tickets.

• Maintain data privacy and integrity: HackerRank does not notify the recruiter or hiring teams about individual candidate issues to maintain the privacy and integrity of the candidates. The Support team cannot verify a candidate’s identity or confirm their association with your hiring process because test invitations can be forwarded or reused.

• Handle custom test issues: HackerRank manages custom test-related issues in the following ways:

  • Candidate inquiries: When candidates contact HackerRank Support about the content of a custom test, the Support team directs them to reach out to their recruiter or hiring team directly.

  • Content validation: HackerRank Content team periodically reviews test feedback from candidates on custom questions, validates reported issues, and provides recommendations or guidance for necessary changes.
    These findings are shared with the Customer Account Manager (CAM), who communicates them to the designated point of contact (POC) from your company.

Recommended candidate support workflow

To provide a consistent and fair candidate experience:

1. Encourage candidates to report issues such as a frozen code editor, a test that fails to load, or a submission error directly to your recruiter or hiring team. 

2. Assess the reported issue to determine its impact on the candidate's performance, and decide whether to offer a retest or continue the hiring process.

3. Escalate the issue to HackerRank Support on behalf of the candidate if you believe a platform-related problem affected their performance. Include the following details in your support request:

   • Candidate’s email address

   • Test or interview name

   • Approximate date and time of the issue

   • Feedback or comments from the candidate

Following this workflow helps ensure a fair, efficient, and privacy-compliant candidate experience.