Introduction  

For tech recruiters and L&D professionals, minimizing the risk of bad hires and identifying top talent has always been a challenge. The traditional method of evaluating candidates manually is often biased, time-consuming, and no longer efficient. In addition, not all companies are always successful in developing an effective recruitment strategy to fairly evaluate and hire the right technical talent. This is where online technical assessment platforms can provide a more standardized evaluation process without subjective judgments.   

Technical assessment platforms can help recruiters gauge candidates on a wide array of skills through functional tests, role-based assessments, adaptive assessments, and collaborative assessments. By employing a strong pre-employment assessment platform in the hiring process, you can ensure that candidates’ technical skills are thoroughly evaluated, thereby, minimizing the risk of hiring individuals who lack the required proficiency. 

Unlike the conventional method of assessing skills, technical assessment tools offer greater transparency and accuracy. Check out the stats given below:  

 

 

Why Choose Technical Assessment Platforms for Skilling and Hiring? 

For the HR pros, a technical assessment platform for skilling and technical hiring serves as a go-to tool to evaluate the technical proficiency and skills of individuals as per the job role. By automating various aspects of assessment and evaluation, a technical assessment platform can significantly reduce administrative burden and save time and effort.  

The platform provides a library of coding challenges across various programming languages and difficulty levels. Through these challenges, you can assess candidates’ coding abilities, problem-solving skills, algorithmic thinking, and understanding of programming concepts for specific technical roles.  

 

Here are some key reasons why organizations you should utilize a tech assessment platform for hiring and skilling.  

• The provide real-time coding environments: Online assessment platforms offers a coding interface that allows candidates to write, compile, and run their code in real time. Through online assessments, you can provide an environment similar to an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) with features like syntax highlighting, code completion, and debugging tools. 
• They Possess Hackathon-specific Features: Technical assessment platforms offer features specifically designed for Hackathons. This includes capabilities like team management, collaboration tools, version control, code sharing, and real-time communication. These features enhance the Hackathon experience, facilitate teamwork, and allow a large number of participants to showcase their skills effectively. 
• They offer a range of multiple-choice questions (MCQs):  Alongside coding challenges, online assessment platforms include multiple-choice questions to evaluate candidates’ theoretical knowledge of programming languages, data structures, algorithms, and other technical concepts. Using these questions, you can gain a comprehensive view of candidates’ understanding and conceptual grasp, helping you to make informed hiring decisions. 
• They help with performance evaluation: Technical assessment platform measures candidates’ performance in coding challenges based on various criteria, such as the correctness of the solution, efficiency, and adherence to coding standards. Besides, skill assessment tools take into consideration factors such as the time taken to complete the task or the number of test cases passed. Such insights are highly valuable to determine the candidate’s alignment with the present role and responsibilities. 
• They automate the testing process: Technical assessment tools include a test framework that automatically checks the candidates’ code against predefined test cases to verify correctness. This eliminates the need for manual evaluation, provides immediate feedback to candidates, and ensures consistent and objective assessment. 
• They offer a range of customization options: Technical assessment platforms offer customization options to cater to the specific needs and requirements of organizations. For example, organizations can create and customize their own coding challenges and assessment content according to their specific requirements. This flexibility enables tailored evaluation of candidates’ skills based on the technical roles or domains being considered. 
• They help with analytics and reporting: Technical assessment platform can generate in-depth analytics and reports that provide insights into candidates’ performance, proficiency levels, strengths, and areas for improvement. Such data-driven reports are crucial for recruiters and hiring managers in gaining insights and making informed decisions by identifying the most qualified candidates. 
• They allow for integration with applicant tracking systems (ATS) and other systems: To streamline the hiring process, online assessment platforms may integrate with popular applicant tracking systems. This integration enables seamless transfer of candidate data, assessment results, and progress tracking, reducing administrative overhead. 

So, now that you know the top features of an online assessment platform, it’s time to identify what questions you should be asking while choosing a tech screening platform for skilling and technical hiring.  

 

How to Identify the Right Technical Assessment Platform for Technical Hiring? 

Did you know that in 2020, the hiring rate among engineering graduates in India was as low as 31%? (Source: statista.com). This indicates that even the most talented lot are not immune to the criticalities of the technical hiring process.  

To ensure that the skill assessment platform meets your specific need, an efficient tech screening platform must be developed in the right way. The platform should allow a fair hiring process while reducing the administrative burden of running manual test exams online. Not only will this save you time, money, and effort, but also ensure that such technical screening produces accurate results in identifying the right talent.   

With the explosion of tech interview tools, it’s not easy to identify which functional tool can simplify finding the right skill fit for the role. Because NOT all coding assessment tools may be the best choice for screening candidates seamlessly. Again, for pre-employment skill testing, each job role demands specific skill sets that need to be customized to suit the job description. Therefore, it’s essential to carefully evaluate and select the right coding assessment tool that aligns with your recruitment strategy and goals.   

   

Here are the top five questions that you should ask while choosing a technical assessment platform for technical hiring and skilling candidates.  

 

#1 What types of assessments and challenges does the technical assessment platform offer? Is it Scalable to accommodate several learners? 

Inquire about the variety of coding challenges, multiple-choice questions, algorithmic problems, and other assessment formats available on the platform. Ensure that the platform provides a diverse range of evaluation methods suitable for your technical roles and requirements. 

For example, debugging exercises focus on candidates’ debugging skills wherein need to identify and fix the errors to make the code function correctly. Similarly, some technical assessment platforms offer assessments specific to particular programming languages or frameworks. These assessments can test candidates’ knowledge of language-specific features, libraries, and best practices. Certain coding assessment platforms allow real-world coding projects or scenarios that simulate on-the-job challenges. Depending on the platform and the specific requirements of the hiring company, you may find additional types of assessments or variations. 

Yaksha’s tech assessment platform offers fully customizable role-based tech assessments and coding scenarios in real-time, tailored to specific industries and skills. By employing industry-specific assessments, you can offer a range of game-based assessment options that cover various technical skills and programming languages.  

For example, for assessment of Java development, Yaksha’s tech assessment tool lets you evaluate candidates’ skills across various dimensions, such as syntax knowledge, algorithmic thinking, code optimization, debugging, and familiarity with specific Java concepts or libraries. This allows you to identify specific skills gaps. Furthermore, you can future-proof your business by determining what skills to develop for future-proofing your business. 

Also, assess whether the platform can handle assessments of a large number of candidates simultaneously. Consider its scalability, reliability, and performance under high demand. This is particularly important if you anticipate conducting assessments for a significant number of candidates. Ensure that the platform’s capacity aligns with your hiring needs, allowing you to assess and evaluate a large pool of candidates efficiently. 

With Yaksha’s highly scalable and robust assessment platform, it is possible to streamline the assessment process and save time when dealing with a high volume of candidates. Due to Yaksha’s pre-configured role-based, collaborative and auto-graded assessments, the platform is easily scalable during high-volume hiring periods. 

 

#2 Can the platform integrate with your existing systems and workflows? 

Check if the platform can integrate with your applicant tracking system (ATS) or other HR systems. Seamless integration allows for streamlined candidate management, data transfer, reporting, and analytics. An online assessment tool that features powerful integration capabilities eliminates the need for manual data entry and ensures that assessment results are stored and accessible within your hiring system. Besides, ensure that you can create on-demand assessments that are hyper-personalized to screen candidates faster and more efficiently.  

One such enterprise-ready assessment platform that offers seamless integration with the applicant tracking system (ATS), LMS, and your existing platforms is the Yaksha assessment tool. The online assessment platform allows seamless data flow, synchronization of candidate information, and centralized management of assessment results within your existing infrastructure. Besides, you can configure the assessment platform to align with your internal processes and workflows. By employing this platform, you can create customized assessments curated from a rich library of over 3 lakhs + MCQs across tech stacks.  

 

#3. Is the technical assessment platform customizable? 

Not all online assessment platforms are customizable. Check if the platform allows customization of assessments and considers flexibility, scalability, and ease of customization. Because your requirements and training assessment priorities might change in the future. This is crucial for tailoring evaluations to your specific technical roles and skill requirements.  

Customization options enable you to create assessments that closely match the skills needed for your organization. The more options available, the better you can align the platform with your changing requirement. By tailoring assessment content to align with the technical skills and knowledge required for specific roles or industries, you can design assessments, and exercises, or develop coding challenges that reflect the specific competencies you want to evaluate in candidates. This ensures that the assessments are relevant and meaningful for your hiring needs. 

With Yaksha’s tech assessment engine, you can employ adaptive algorithms to personalize assessments based on the candidate’s responses and performance. As the candidate progresses through the assessment, the platform dynamically adjusts the difficulty level and content of the questions to match the candidate’s skill level. Such customization built on skills and job roles ensures that the assessment remains challenging and relevant to the candidate’s proficiency. 

 

#4 How does the platform handle real-time coding environments and evaluation? 

Inquire about the platform’s coding interface and evaluation process. Look for features like real-time coding environments, syntax highlighting, code completion, and debugging tools. Ensure that the platform allows candidates to execute their code in real time and provides debugging capabilities. Real-time execution ensures that candidates can test their code and verify its correctness within the coding environment. Debugging features, such as setting breakpoints and stepping through code, are valuable for assessing candidates’ problem-solving skills and ability to identify and fix issues. 

Additionally, ask how the platform automatically evaluates and scores candidates’ coding solutions. What programming languages and frameworks are actually supported? Verify that the platform supports the programming languages and frameworks relevant to your organization. 

Ensure that candidates can write code in the languages commonly used in your industry, such as Python, Java, JavaScript, or C++. It’s also beneficial if the platform supports a wide range of libraries and frameworks to accommodate different coding requirements. 

Yaksha’s real-time coding assessments offer integrated coding environments where candidates can write and test their code in real-time. This allows candidates to demonstrate their programming skills and problem-solving abilities directly within the platform. The real-time coding environment provides a realistic and interactive experience for candidates during the assessment process.  

 

#5 Does the platform offer performance metrics and analytics? 

Check if the technical assessment platform provides performance metrics and detailed analytics. Comprehensive performance metrics and analytics enable data-driven decision-making and provide insights into candidates’ capabilities that can help you make informed hiring or learning and development decisions. 

Besides, you can understand candidates’ strengths, weaknesses, and proficiency levels. Look for features like detailed reports, comparison metrics, and visualizations that can aid in decision-making. Also, check if the platform allows you to track candidates’ learning progress across multiple assessments. This feature is particularly useful for continuous learning and development initiatives or for assessing candidates’ growth and improvement over time. 

 

Yaksha’s tech assessment tool generates detailed reports on candidates’ performance in specific technical areas by tracking performance and progress, thereby providing deeper insights into the learning trajectory. These insights go beyond resumes and interviews, providing a more comprehensive understanding of candidates’ actual skills. Recruiters can review assessment scores, identify strengths and weaknesses, and assess how well candidates align with the specific technical requirements of the role. 

By asking these questions, you can gather the necessary information to make an informed decision about the technical assessment platform that aligns with your organization’s needs for technical hiring and skilling.