Certified Assessments: Leveling the Playing Field for Every Developer

Imagine yourself as an ambitious developer. You’ve spent countless hours practicing your technical skills, and after weeks of applications, you finally hear back from one of your dream companies. They tell you that you’ll be taking a technical assessment, and while you’re a little nervous, you know you’re prepared to ace it. 

However, when test day finally comes, you don’t get a fair opportunity to show off your skills due to factors outside of your control. Maybe the assessment contained errors, or it didn’t keep candidates from copying answers from other test takers. No matter the reason, you feel cheated – and justifiably so. 

Unfortunately, many developers have dealt with poorly designed tests, and it’s prevented them from showing off their full potential. While hiring teams might be aware of this issue, they may not have the time, resources, or expertise to build and maintain job-related assessments that are fair and reliable. 

That’s why we’re proud to unveil Certified Assessments.

With Certified Assessments, the design, creation, and maintenance of tech screening tests are managed by HackerRank, so hiring teams can focus on the human side of hiring.

Leave Content Management to Us

Content management is a full-time job, and when hiring teams already have dozens of other responsibilities, it’s difficult to effectively manage test content. With Certified Assessments, we run 24/7 leaked question monitoring to find out when questions are leaked, so we can take immediate action to maintain the integrity of your tech screening tests. In addition, we carry out ongoing maintenance to ensure questions maintain their effectiveness and relevance. By delegating content management to us, hiring teams have more time to focus on other aspects of the hiring process, like building meaningful connections with candidates. 

“After creating each Certified Assessment, we conducted a formal content validation process.  This entailed gathering judgments from SMEs that each item requires one or more of the skills and abilities targeted by the test. But our work doesn’t stop with test creation. We conduct ongoing question monitoring to mitigate question leakage” stated Jeff Facteau.

Leverage the Strongest Plagiarism Detection on the Market

Every developer should have an equal opportunity to showcase their skills, so HackerRank runs advanced proctoring to mitigate malpractice and ensure no developer gains an unfair advantage. Each section of the test is unique and pulled from a bank of possible questions, so there is a 1 in 10,000 chance any two developers get the same test. We understand that all good developers use someone else’s code in their day-to-day, but when it comes to making a hiring decision, devs should let their unique skills speak for themselves.

Assess Job-Relevant Skills and Make Better Hires

We followed a rigorous job analysis and test development process for each of our
Certified Assessments. This ensures that they accurately assess the technical skills required for the targeted role (e.g, Software Engineer). Because the questions are designed to evaluate relevant job skills, and not irrelevant brain teasers, hiring teams gain a better indicator about the developer’s readiness to succeed in the role.

“We conducted a thorough job analysis for each role that included working with subject matter experts to identify and quantify the skills required for the roles. These findings were used to create a test plan for each Certified Assessment and identify the questions to include in them,” said Jeff Facteau, Chief I/O Psychologist at HackerRank.

Give Every Developer an Equal Opportunity to Showcase Their Skills

Bias can influence decision-making and prevent people from having a fair shot to show off their talents. Every HackerRank Certified Assessment undergoes a third-party fairness and sensitivity review to remove bias regarding race, gender, and individual disabilities. These reviews ensure every developer has an equal opportunity to showcase their skills and land their dream role.

“We had an independent consulting firm review our test items for sensitivity and bias. In addition, we fully documented the test creation and validation process in a technical report that conforms with the U.S.’ Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures,” said Jeff Facteau.

We all have work to do before we can create a world where skills speak louder than words. At HackerRank, this is our mission, and Certified Assessments brings everyone closer to achieving it. For more information on Certified Assessments, check out our support article, or schedule a demo to see Certified Assessments in action.