Getting Started for Recruiters

Welcome to HackerRank

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This article covers

Creating a Test 

HackerRank for Work allows hiring managers to create Tests to assess Candidates. After Candidates complete and submit the Tests, the answers can be evaluated in HackerRank for assessing their skills and competence for the job.

Following are the two methods to create a test:

• Creating a test based on a specific role
  Based on your role selection, a test for that role is generated. HackerRank has bundled together questions from the HackerRank Library into a test for certain pre-defined roles.
• Creating a custom test
  You can create new questions or choose questions from the library for a test. You can select questions from the HackerRank library that comprises all questions created by the HackerRank team, or you can also add questions from your personal library if either your team members or you have created questions. 

Refer to the respective links to follow the steps for test creation in detail.

HackerRank Library

The HackerRank Library is a repository of all the questions that can be used to create Tests. The Library contains a collection of readymade Questions of various types and complexities which are categorized across multiple programming languages. The HackerRank Team has bundled these Questions together, which you can use to build Tests and assess your Candidates’ skills relevant for specific job Roles.

Additionally, for custom requirements, you can create new Questions in HackerRank and store them in a personal section called 'My Company questions' within the Library. You can manage your Questions and also use Questions created by other HackerRank Team members.

Prerequisites:

You must be logged in to your HackerRank for Work account.

Navigating through the HackerRank Library

Click Library on the HackerRank for Work home page. You can view the following three main sections:

• HackerRank questions is the repository of all the readymade Questions created by HackerRank. The numerous variety of Questions available in this section allow you to quickly and easily generate Tests by directly adding the relevant Questions.
• My Company questions comprise all the Questions created by you and other members of your HackerRank Team. When you create new Questions, they will be listed under the My Company questions list.
• Archived questions comprise all the Company Questions that have been archived. There is also an option to restore an archived Question.  

The 'My Company' and 'Archived' Questions can be further classified and viewed as described below:

Note: You can only archive and restore the Questions which you have created. 

Searching and Adding Questions

1. You can navigate through the Library Questions by selecting the HackerRank questions, My Company questions, or the Archived questions sections.

2. In the left pane, you can search for a particular Question based on the following filters:

• Skills - With this filter, you can select the question for a particular skill you are looking for.
• Keyword - Specify a search string in this field.
• Difficulty - You can search based on the Question complexity levels: Easy, Medium, or Hard.
• Type - Select the Question type. For example, a question for which the answer involves writing code or algorithm is classified as a Coding type Question.  
• Recommended Time - With this, you can select the questions according to your choice of time 
• Owner - This category is available for the My Company questions and the Archived questions sections and is explained in the previous section.
• Tags - Lists all the Tags attached to the Questions in that particular Library section. You can filter the Questions by selecting the appropriate Tag(s). The Tags filter is available under the HackerRank questions, and the My Company questions sections.
• Languages  - Lists the Programming Languages associated with Questions in that particular Library section. You can filter the Questions by selecting the appropriate Programming Language(s).
• Other Filters - This includes the ‘Hide Leaked Questions’ option. Select this option to exclude Questions for which the solution is available on the Internet, and such Questions will not be listed. Refer: Checking for leaked questions on HackerRank for Work for more information.

3. In the left pane, click on the Hamburger icon to view or hide the search filters.

4. Click the title of a Question to view the complete problem description.

5. Hover your mouse over a Question, and you will see the Insights option on the right side. Click Insights to view statistical data on the usage of a Question. The Insights give useful information such as the number of times the question has been attempted, median attempt time for the question, and median attempt time for the full score.

6. From the different Library sections, you can add Questions to a Test by clicking on the three dots next to the Question and selecting 'Add to test.'

7. The Add to.. window displays. Select the Test for which you want to add the Question. The Question will be included in the selected Test. Or you can create a new test with the selected question.  

8. In the My Company questions section, hover your mouse over a Question, and click Edit to modify a Question. You can only modify the Questions created by you or your HackerRank Team members. Refer: Edit a Question for more information.

Archiving and Restoring Questions

You can archive your personal Library Questions which you no longer use.

1. Under the My Company questions section, in the Owner category, select My Questions. All Questions created by you are listed.

2. Click the three dots next to the required Question(s), and select Archive from the drop-down menu.

3. The selected Questions will now appear under the Archived questions section.

4. You can restore your personal Library questions. To restore the archived questions, click on the three dots next to the required Question(s) and click Restore. The Questions will be restored under the ‘My Company questions’ section.

HackerRank for Work allows Recruiters to generate Tests according to specific hiring requirements. The HackerRank Library provides Recruiters the option to choose the relevant Questions for the hiring Tests, thereby helping to assess Candidates with the right skills and experience.

Test Settings

Prerequisites

• You must be logged in to your HackerRank for Work account.
• You must have created a test.

Steps

1. Click the Tests tab on the home page and then click the test name for which you want to modify the settings.
2. Once the test opens, click Settings, present under the name of the test.
3. On the displayed settings page, you can configure any of the below-given settings. 

• General Settings
• Candidate Settings
• Test Access Settings
• Score Settings
• Question Settings
• Email Settings

Click on any of the mentioned settings to discover how to configure test settings. 

Inviting Candidates

Inviting a Candidate HackerRank for Work enables Recruiters to invite Candidates to take a Test. Test invites can be sent to Candidates through an email containing the link to access the Test and other details. You can customize your email invites and save them in different formats, known as Templates.

Refer Using a Custom Email Template for more information.

Note: You can invite a Candidate only if you own a Recruiter license. Hiring managers need to ask their Recruiters to send invitations to the Candidates.

Prerequisites

1. You must be logged in to your HackerRank for Work account.
2. You must have created and published the Test for which you want to invite Candidates.

Email Invitation:

1. Add the introduction and description in the email's body and edit the email subject as required. Use the necessary formatting options available in the editor.
2. You can also save the email format as a template, which can be reused later.
3. Add the email addresses of the Candidates whom you want to invite.
4. Set an expiry date for the invite, and set reminders for Candidates if necessary.
5. Send the email invite.

Steps

1. Navigate to the Tests tab. The Invite icon is present on the extreme right of every Test as shown below.

 2. Click on the Invite icon for the Test for which you want to send email invites. The ‘Send Test Invites’ page is displayed with the email editor using which you can customize the invite and configure the necessary settings. These settings are specific to every email invite.

You can perform the following actions using the email editor:

• Edit and customize the email subject. By default, the Subject field contains the name of the Test.
• Type a custom message in the email body. You can use the text formatting options in the editor to customize your message. Formatting such as bullets, numbering, image, etc., can be included.
• You can save the email message as a template, or use an existing template for the email invite. Refer: Using a Custom Email Template for more information about creating new Templates and using them.

3. In the To field, add the email address(es) of the Candidates. You can enter the email addresses of multiple Candidates in the following two formats:

 4. Click on the + sign to add placeholders for Candidate and Recruiter names in the email message.

When the email invite is sent, the placeholder for Candidate Name will include the name of the Candidate if it is present in the 'To' address field or in the CSV file being used to bulk upload email addresses.
Example: If the To address field contains the Candidate name and email address as ‘Evan Brown <evanbrown@gmail.com>’, when the email is sent, the placeholder for Candidate name will display “Evan Brown.”
Assuming you are the Recruiter, the placeholder for Recruiter Name will display your full name registered with your HackerRank account.

5. You can include URLs in the email invite by clicking on the Link icon.

6. The Add Link dialog box is displayed. In the Text Display field, specify a display name for the URL, and in the URL field, specify the URL to link.

7. Click on the Upload Document button to upload a document link. When Candidates click the link in the invite email, the uploaded document will be displayed.

8. Click on the Save button.

Adding a URL in an email invite

9. Select the Expiry option to set the time duration for which the Test invite will be active. After the duration finishes, the Test invite expires, and Candidates will no longer be able to take the Test.

10. You can also click on the ‘Send Reminders’ option to send reminders to Candidates to take up the Test before it expires. When you set a reminder for the invite, an email will be automatically sent at the specified time to remind the Candidate(s) about the Test.

For detailed information about configuring the Test invite expiry, reminders, and other settings, refer: Customizing Test Invite Email Settings.

11. Finally, click on the Send button to send the invite.

Performing Bulk Upload of Candidate Email Addresses

In a scenario where you want to send a Test email invite to a large number of Candidates, you can upload a CSV file containing the email addresses of all the Candidates.

1. Click on the Upload CSV  icon to upload a CSV (Comma Separated Value) file containing all the email addresses.

This will open the following window:

Uploading CSV file

2. You can click on the Download option to see the sample format of the CSV file.

3. Click on the Upload CSV button. Select the CSV file containing the email addresses and names of all the Candidates you want to invite to the Test.

Note: Only files in CSV formats are acceptable. If you have created a file with email addresses (and names) in other formats, you must save that file in the CSV format and then upload it to our platform. 

4. After uploading the CSV file, click on the Send button. The invite is sent to all the Candidates whose email address is listed in your CSV file.

Note: When inviting multiple Candidates, a Candidate will not be able to see the other Candidates being invited to take the Test. Although you are inviting multiple Candidates, every Candidate will receive an individual invite, and other Candidates will not be cc'd on the emails. 

Re-inviting Candidates to a Test

There are often cases where Candidates are unable to complete a Test due to a power outage or loss of connectivity. In such cases, if you like Candidates to retake the test, you can send them another invite for the same Test without deleting the previous reports of invites and attempts. All attempts of Candidates will be stored, and you can view the report for each Test.

Note: The candidate must have completed the Test in order for them to be eligible for a re-invite. A re-invite can not be sent if a Test attempt is still in progress. 

Refer to the Reinviting Candidates to a Test article for more information.

Reviewing a candidate report

Test Insights

The Test Insights page provides statistical information to help analyze your Candidate's performance trend in a Test. Use the insights to measure the effectiveness of your Tests in selecting the right Candidates.

Candidate Performance Reports   

The Candidates page of a Test lists individual entries for all the Candidates with their Test statuses indicated, such as "Invited," "To evaluate," "Passed," etc. This page allows you to access their detailed Test performance reports, manage the evaluation process and includes capabilities to search, filter, and sort the Candidate entries. 

While managing the Candidate entries, you can perform operations such as granting additional test time to Candidates and re-inviting Candidates to the Test.

After your Candidates have attempted their Tests, you can access their detailed Test Reports to get a Question wise comprehensive view of their submitted answers, code solutions, automatically evaluated scores, test case execution statuses, logs, etc. The report is generated based on the defined scoring mechanism.

To help you classify Candidates who provide genuine solutions in your Tests, HackerRank facilitates code quality checks and plagiarism detectors in detailed Test reports. 

For specific coding Questions, such as Full-stack Questions, you can quickly launch an IDE from within the Test report to view and compile the Candidate's code and evaluate the solution.

For the purpose of detailed evaluation and sharing with external stakeholders, HackerRank allows you to download the Test Reports as PDF or Excel files. 

The above capabilities assist with a thorough evaluation of your Candidates' Test performances while successfully moving forward with your hiring process.

Interviews

HackerRank provides a unique live coding platform for conducting technical interviews online. Typically, if a candidate is shortlisted from the first level of assessments, then an Interview can be conducted. HackerRank Interviews provide the interviewers all the flexibility to recreate an experience similar to an on-site interview. It is a time-efficient and cost-effective method to remotely evaluate candidates. Our platform gives the interviewers the ability to gauge a candidate's coding and problem-solving ability in real-time. 

Read more about interviews here.

Starting a new interview

Steps

• Navigate to INTERVIEWS and click on New Interview.
• Enter the candidate email and interview title.

Quick Pad Interview

• You will get a unique link for your interview session, and you can copy that link to the clipboard and invite participants whom you want to be part of the interview.

Interview Link

• On the interview page, you can edit candidate information, add participants and schedule the interview. 
• On this page, you can also upload the candidate's Resume.
• Click on Save once you finish filling in all the details. 

Scheduling an Interview

You can read more about conducting an interview here.