2020 Q2 Release Notes

Overview

We are constantly updating HackerRank for Work with new improvements and fixes. Here is a summary of customer-facing updates we have made from April 2nd, 2020, to July 7th, 2020.

Plan with Roles and Skills within HackerRank 

Roles Management

All of the engineers who are hired for the same role and position require the same skills, even if they are in different departments or geos. Currently it is too easy to create team specific hiring bars.

 

We have added "Roles management" option in the top-right dropdown menu. User can view all roles and see other relevant details on this page. Roles Management enables you to standardize your hiring process based on industry standard roles. The skills shown in the roles management will be used throughout the interview process for assessing and reviewing candidates consistently.

 

For more information, please see Getting Started With Roles Management

 

Skill-Based Library

Now that Roles and skills are used throughout the process, test creators and interviewers need to find the right questions to ask a candidate.

The library now allows you to search and filter based on the skill the question is assessing. All questions that assess the same skill are designed to be interchangeable within the same test.

 

Skill Definitions

Now that Roles and skills are used throughout the process, it is important to understand the definitions and details about the standardized skills.

 

We have made each of the skill pills clickable. When clicked, these pills show the definition for that skill, relevant content in the library, and a link to the public skill directory.

New Industry-Vetted Skills Directory

Skills Directory is a one-stop place to find the collection of all Skills available on HackerRank and the corresponding definitions. It is a Public facing page with the ability to navigate to a specific skill to find all associated information. Links to these definition pages have been added as additional information at various places in the product where standardized skills are mentioned.

 

A hiring team can refer to the Skills Directory to understand how Skills are defined and learn more about different competency areas to assess a candidate. Developers on the HackerRank Community can discover different competencies they need to possess to master a skill. Practice tracks and certifications are available for some skills. We are actively working towards adding both of these for more skills in the future.

 

Skills have been validated by Subject matter experts in the Industry. These individuals are thought leaders in their domains and are renowned for their work in the industry. Some of them have created course work, designed curriculum, held numerous conferences, etc.

 

For more information, Read more here. 

CodeScreen Tests

Skill-Based Test Creation

Test creation is now based on roles & skills. The test creation wizard shows an updated list of roles to choose from along with details about mapped skills. These roles are the same ones that show up in Roles Management. After a test is created, we have added a new panel on the questions page. This allows you to add skill specific questions easily and ensure that the test covers all important skills for the role.

 

For more information, please see Create Tests Based on Specific Roles

 

Skill-Based Test Reports

We've updated the test reports to show skill based performance charts. These are based on the skills chosen during test creation.

Skill-Based Evaluation for Projects

Hiring teams often review submissions manually for skills like code quality, architecture and more. The evaluation workflow we created will help the evaluator to easily jump to the submitted code with a scorecard on the right. This enables code reviewers to leave more structured feedback on project questions based on skills like React, Angular etc

 

Here are the main features:

• A new "Evaluate" action is now available inside the report summary page and in the detailed section under the project question
• The evaluate tab is available for tests that have a job role mapped with skills.
• Using the scorecard, customers can review the candidate's code, run the submission in the online IDE, leave skill-based feedback and adjust the score
• The scorecard lists down all the skills that are mapped to the job role, so customers can review the submission on more than one skill
• The evaluation workflow is available for custom Project questions as well as long as the test only has 1 project question and the job role for the test is mapped with skills
• This feature does not change how automatic scoring works and it will continue to work as expected

 

Note: Restricted to tests with 1 project question as of now, this will be extended to all tests including non-project questions in H2’ 2020.

 

For more information, please read here.

 

Identity verification Photo

Customers often wonder if the person who takes the test is the same candidate who was sent the test invite. To thwart fraudulent attempts, we we can prompt the candidate to take a photo once they enter the test. This is based on a test setting. The Evaluator/ recruiter can view this picture in the candidate report once the test is submitted.

 

Auto-login to sample test

 

Previously, candidates needed to login to a sample test before trying it. This was unnecessary friction for them to try a sample test. We have removed this friction now by automatically taking candidates into a sample test when they click on “Try sample test”.

Showing time limits inside test

In the past, whenever a candidate’s code exceeded the time limits of our HackerRank environment, we suggested that they go to an environment page which had a long list of allowed time limit per language to see the limit. This was stressful to figure out while taking a test.

 

We are now showing the allowed time limit inside the test based on the language used by the candidate. Please note that this is shown only when candidate’s code exceeds the time limit of our environment.

Editor Improvements

We have also made the following changes to the editor:

• Static compilation error detection - We now detect more compilation errors inside the editor as you type your code.
• New libraries in Python for CodePair - We now support machine learning and web libraries inside CodePair
• Improved autocomplete speed and suggestions - For C#, Golang, Python, Java and Ruby

CodePair Interviews

Whiteboard in CodePair

When tech hiring became remote, there was a need to conduct the onsite whiteboard system design interviews virtually. It’s very hard to replace a physical whiteboard experience of sketching using a marker. Sketching using a computer mouse/trackpad just doesn’t feel the same.

We introduced a whiteboard that helps you and your candidates sketch effortlessly using mouse/trackpad. The whiteboard is seamlessly integrated into CodePair and also supports collaboration and reporting like any other CodePair interview.

 

Read more about the whiteboard here.

Recommended Questions and Interviewer Guidelines in CodePair

We wanted our customers to easily access the questions that are fine-tuned for CodePair interviews. We have launched 21 Recommended Questions. All Recommended Questions have Interviewer Guidelines that are not visible to candidates.

 

Questions with Interviewer Guidelines provide context around hints, potential followup questions, solution and complexity analysis for a question. This will help handhold the customer throughout their interview process. We have re-branded “Internal Notes” to “Interviewer Guidelines” throughout the product. These guidelines are located at the bottom of the Task Description.

Role-based skill scorecards

CodePairs can now be easily mapped to a role using the role dropdown option on the invite UI. These scorecards will now be role specific and will allow the interviewer to grade the candidate on relevant skills rather than a static list of skills. CodePair sessions will be mapped to a role automatically if the CodePair is being created from a test report.

 

For more information, please see Scheduling a CodePair Interview

IP address in CodePair report

We have added the IP address of the interviewer and the candidate in the CodePair report.  
This will help recruiters and hiring managers track the location of interviewers and candidates in CodePair.

Import diagram question into CodePair from CodeScreen

As a part of our CodeScreen-CodePair integration, we have added the ability to import diagram questions from CodeScreen into CodePair. Previously, we only supported importing of Coding questions.

Library Content

Launched 15 new skills

• Docker (Basic & Intermediate)
• AWS (Basic & Intermediate)
• Ansible (Basic & Intermediate)
• C# (Basic)
• .NET (Basic & Intermediate)
• Spring Boot (Basic & Intermediate)
• RoR (Basic & Intermediate)
• Django (Basic & Intermediate)

Added Docker and AWS Skill Questions

We have launched AWS multiple choice questions along with Docker hands-on skills.

Added Interviewer Guidelines to 60+ Questions

We have added Interviewer Guidelines to 60 questions that can hand hold the customer during the interviewing or reviewing process.

 

Improve Quality of 100 library questions

• We have refurbished Project Questions to the latest versions of the respective framework.
• All pre-defined Tests have high quality questions mapped to HackerRank Skills

Admin

Audit Logs

When investigating changes to data in HackerRank, admins need to view the audit trail and determine who made what change when. However, admins have had to use the API to get to these logs in the past, which is not that user friendly.

We have added a new page for Audit Logs in Settings. You can filter based on the Object - Interviews, Tests, Questions, etc.

 

Billing page for Subscription Customers

We have created a dedicated billing page with order history and downloadable receipts for subscription customers.

Fixed Issues

Multiple customer impacting issues were fixed during Q2. Here are some of the top issues that were fixed:

• Blank Page issue in IE 11
• Candidate forced to logout of test after 2 min
• CodeScreen PDF Issues
• Taking Sample Test logs out of existing test
• CodePair Report & PDF Issues
• Unable to login to CodePair
• Candidate timeline off by default