HackerRank Updates

To make it easier to choose the right questions for your screening tests, we’ve added Recommended Time to the question creation process and enabled the ability to sort questions using Recommended Time.

We have updated all questions in HackerRank library with a recommended time to complete the question. We’ve also performed a one-time update on your custom questions. The time recommendations for custom questions were set based on the amount of time it took 10 or more candidates to solve the question correctly. 

For custom questions where fewer than 10 candidates have completed the challenge correctly,  the Recommended Time is calculated based on attempt data for HackerRank Library questions of the same type. In this case, the Recommended Time reflects the amount of time it took most candidates to solve the same type of question correctly.

With this update, you can easily adjust the Recommended Time by editing the question:

You can also sort questions according to Recommended Time in the Library:

Learn more about Recommended Time here.

The Diversity and Inclusion Center is a collection of features that empower hiring teams to make better hiring decisions by eliminating unconscious bias and offer an inclusive interview experience.
These features are available in the ‘Diversity & Inclusion’ section of the settings page and let you:

• Anonymize candidate identities and other personal details in test & CodePair reports.
• Create an anonymized interview experience on CodePair.
• Easily accommodate candidates with special needs.

The identity Anonymization settings can only be turned on and off by company admins.

Resources available:

• Blog Post
• Datasheet

Data science is a rapidly growing field, and Data Scientist, one of the most in-demand jobs in the world. As demand for Data Science candidates grows, identifying and hiring the best candidates is increasingly challenging as well as competitive. 

Today, we’re launching HackerRank Projects (previously known as Role-based Assessments) for Data Science to give hiring teams the power to identify and assess top Data Science candidates through project-based, real-world challenges. 

We’re also hosting a webinar to cover best practices for assessing data scientists. Register here! 

Here’s what it includes:

New real-world challenges to assess key Data Science skills

We created a new set of real-world challenges that focus on assessing key skills strong Data Scientists need. These include: 

• Data Wrangling
• Modeling
• Data Visualization
• Machine Learning

Learn more about our new Data Science questions here.

Pre-designed ready-to-go Data Science tests

To simplify Data Science hiring and to provide a complete yet comprehensive test experience, we are releasing new pre-designed screening tests for the Data Scientist role.

These tests have 1 Data Science question and 1 Database question. Recruiters and Hiring Managers can create these tests through our test creation wizard and start inviting candidates right away.

Learn more about creating a test here.

Better candidate experience through Jupyter Notebook support

The HackerRank Projects platform now comes with specially tailored features to create a better experience for Data  Science candidates. By enabling support for Jupyter, the most widely used environment in the Data Science community, we’ve ensured candidate experience while solving a Data Science question is seamless!

Candidates can use an embedded Jupyter Notebook for solving Data Science challenges within HackerRank. This Data Science-specific environment makes it easier for candidates to showcase their skills in a familiar setting. Since Jupyter is built specifically for Data Scientists, this option makes for great candidate experience.

Learn more about answering a Data Science question here.

Candidate reports for Data Science

Additionally, in order to improve candidate assessment, we have updated candidate reports for Data Science questions. The updated reports enable Hiring Managers to run the Jupyter Notebooks submitted by candidates with the click of a button. We also provide a preview of the Notebook for easy consumption and the ability to download the entire candidate solution at once.

Learn more about Data Science test reports and how to evaluate them here.

Effective Screening  with HackerRank Projects for Data Science

We’re inviting you to join us for our upcoming Data Science webinar! 

We’ll cover best practices for assessing Data Scientists, including how to leverage HackerRank Projects to assess for data wrangling, building models, data visualization, machine learning, and more. 

Join the Webinar here.

We have made some key updates to CodePair to enhance the candidate experience and make the interview process seamless between the screening and interview stages to ensure you can conduct effective technical interviews.

CodeScreen – CodePair Integration

In a typical interview workflow, the screening and technical interview rounds are often disconnected: candidates complete the online challenge on CodeScreen and then complete another challenge live during a technical interview with the hiring manager or on-site via CodePair. 

A more effective way to conduct technical interviews would be to create a technical evaluation that builds on itself, building on previously submitted code from the screening stage in later interview stages. This approach gives interviewers the opportunity to review the code with the candidate in real-time, ask questions, and better understand the candidate’s approach to problem-solving. Add complexity to the original challenge and understand the candidate’s ability to think on their feet, collaborate, and solve problems. 

To enable this effective interviewing process, we have integrated our CodeScreen and CodePair solutions. Starting today, interviewers can import the candidate’s screening test (questions and submitted code from CodeScreen) into a codepair session and collaborate in a live pair programming session. See below. 

Learn how to use this integration here

REPL

We take your candidate experience seriously and continuously improve our platform with developer-friendly tools to ensure they have the best possible experience. As part of that effort, we’re excited to bring REPL support for CodePair.

With REPL (Read-eval-print-loop), candidates and interviewers can easily evaluate the correctness of a block of code by executing them separately. It lets candidates code, problem-solve, and troubleshoot efficiently, which makes for a great candidate and interviewer experience. We currently support REPL for Python and Python 3. Support for JavaScript and Ruby are coming soon. 

Learn more about how to use REPL, here

Enhanced user interface

We have redesigned the CodePair user interface (UI) to simplify navigation and provide more room for candidates and interviewers to code. We have also introduced a dark theme, all-time candidate favorite, across the product and renamed a few features for clarity. These include: 

• “Notes” tab has been renamed to “Interviewer Notes”
• “STDIN” tab has been renamed to “Input”
• “STDOUT” tab has been renamed to “Run/Test Output”
• “Run all test cases” checkbox is replaced with a dropdown “Run Tests” in the “Run Code” button.

• For REPL enabled languages, the “Input” tab will not be present as REPL can take real-time input.

• For REPL enabled languages, REPL will be available inside the  “Run Output” tab and clicking on the “Run code” button will show the code output inside the “Run Output” tab.

• For REPL enabled languages, clicking “Run Tests” button will show the result of Test cases inside “Test Output” tab 

Learn more about the UI changes here

Using CodePair and CodeScreen for effective technical interviews 

Want more information about using CodePair for your technical interviews? Join us on August 29th to deep dive on interview best practices, including a detailed walkthrough of how CodeScreen and CodePair can help:

The Test Health Dashboard offers an up-to-date view into the health of every HackerRank test. Combining insights on candidate response and assessment quality, you can now take immediate action to increase the efficiency of your candidate funnel and hire more quality candidates across job roles and experience levels.

Resources available:

• Blog post
• Data sheet
• Knowledge base article

Today we’re excited to share that we’re launching new Role-based Assessments to help all HackerRank customers—go beyond evaluating fundamental coding skills to—assess developers’ skills based on their job function. Front-end role-based assessments are available today. Back-end and Full-stack are available in Beta. As part of this launch, we are also renaming existing question types to improve alignment between the right job roles versus skill assessment.

• SudoRank is now DevOps
• DbRank is now Database Engineer
• Front-end is now HTML/CSS/Javascript
• DroidRank is now Android Developer

DevOps, Database Engineer, and Android Developer question types have also been moved under the new “Role-based” column inside the “Create a question” dialog.

This update doesn’t change the experience for these question types. They will continue to function as they do currently. Please reach out to support@hackerrank.com if you have any questions or concerns about this change.

HackerRank will not be available due to scheduled maintenance from 5:30 pm to 6:30 pm PST on 28th May 2018 (See all timezones here). We will take this time to perform updates to our database.

During this time you will not be able to access the entire HackerRank platform including HackerRank for Work, HackerRank Community and HackerRank Jobs.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does this impact test candidates?

The tests interface will not be available during the maintenance window. Candidates will see a notification to come back at a later time if they try to launch a test. We will also ensure that candidates are allowed to start their Test only if they can complete it before the start of the maintenance window.

How does this impact CodePair sessions?

New CodePair sessions cannot start during the maintenance window, and up to 90 minutes prior to the start of the window. For sessions that are live as we approach the window, we will show warnings to the participants so they can complete their interview. Interview data recorded before the maintenance window starts will be safe.

How does this impact my reports?

You will not be able to view reports or dashboards during the downtime.

What happens to invites expiring on 28th May?

For candidate test invites which expire on 28th May, we can increase the expiry date by a day in case you would want to do that. You can send out the consent at support@hackerrank.com

As always, if you have any questions, please email us at support@hackerrank.com and we would be more than happy to answer them.

As a standard part of our security review process, we will be changing the set of ciphers supported by our web servers in our AWS ELB cluster. The changes will go live on Feb 28th, 2018.

The following cipher is being dropped:

ELBSecurityPolicy-2016-08

We are adding a new cipher:

ELBSecurityPolicy-TLS-1-2-2017-01

With this change we are effectively enabling the ELBSecurityPolicy-TLS-1-2-2017-01 pre-defined security policy available on Amazon’s Elastic Load Balancer. You can find more information about the security policy here.

FAQ

Qn: What does it mean to disable an existing cipher?

A client (such as a browser) typically supports multiple ssl ciphers. As part of the handshake the client and server agree on one specific cipher. If the server rejects a requested cipher (because it is no longer supported) the standard protocol is for the client to request another cipher from its list of supported ciphers. All standard browsers and most API SDKs work on these principles and the change should be completely transparent to end users.

Qn: Why is this change required?

This is a standard part of keeping our security infrastructure up to date. It is security Best Practise to replace ciphers that have been shown to have theoretical vulnerabilities with more robust ones.

Qn: I am using a custom API integration with a highly bespoke SSL wrapper and I use one of the ciphers that are going to be disabled. What should I do?

You can test your software by requesting one of the supported ciphers listed in the AWS page linked above. If any of them work, you can configure your wrapper to request that supported cipher instead of one of the disabled ones.

Qn: Will there be any disruption of service during this change?

No. There will be absolutely no disruption if you are using a standard web browser to interact with our application, or if you are using any standard SSL SDK.

Qn: I need more help. What can I do?

We are happy to help. Please leave a comment below or send us a note at support@hackerrank.com