Pre-employment screening helps you make bias-free, data-driven hiring decisions. It lets you accurately evaluate a candidate’s true abilities and significantly reduces mis-hires compared to resume screening.
Pre-employment screening services offer tests to help you evaluate job-specific skills, cognitive ability, culture add, and more. This way, you’re always hiring the perfect candidate for your open roles – with less time and money spent during the recruitment process.
With many pre-employment screening services available today, it may be hard to pick the right one to use. To give you a hand, we compare TestGorilla and HackerRank to determine which is best for you.
TestGorilla is a pre-employment testing platform that’s helped thousands of companies with their hiring needs. We have a library of 400+ tests to evaluate personality traits, language proficiency, programming skills, cognitive ability, and so much more.
To create a custom assessment, you can combine up to five tests and add your own questions. Our tests are filtered through a rigorous quality control process to ensure they’re highly reliable and accurately measure candidates’ abilities and individual qualities.
After you create an assessment, you can send it to candidates using email invitations customized with your company’s branding. Results are available instantly, and you can easily compare applicants based on their overall assessment and individual test scores.
Using TestGorilla can save you time and money during your hiring process and ensure you get the best candidate for the job every time.
HackerRank is a pre-employment screening service focused on hiring developers. It advocates for skills-based hiring using ready-made coding assessments for a variety of programming jobs.
Hiring teams can choose from tests in HackerRank’s test library or create custom tests and coding challenges. Results are provided in PDF, Excel, and CSV formats and include candidate feedback, a breakdown of completion time, and scores for each question.
HackerRank also facilitates live online interviews with features such as a whiteboard, peer coding challenges, screen sharing, and more. HackerRank can even help your hiring team launch online coding events and hackathons to help you expand your recruitment pipeline.
TestGorilla’s library contains tests for many different job types, including software development, customer service, marketing, and others. TestGorilla also has tests for soft skills like motivation and attention to detail.
On the other hand, HackerRank’s library is focused on programming and tech-related tests. There are no dedicated tests for soft skills, but hiring teams and recruiters can assess candidates’ soft skills during live coding interviews.
TestGorilla’s library has “400+” tests that can measure:
Cognitive ability
Programming skills
Role-specific skills
We’re also continuously adding new tests. For instance, our library includes several tests for AI competency, including a Working with Generative AI test.
You can choose from several answer formats, including video answers, file uploads, multiple-choice answers, and essay responses.
You can use a maximum of five tests in an assessment. Mix and match as you like to get a full picture of how well a candidate will fit into your open positions.
In addition, our library is localized in over 12 languages – perfect for global hiring needs.
Discover the depth of TestGorilla's talent assessments. Sign up for our free live demo and see how we redefine skills testing for better hiring.
HackerRank’s library has tests that assess skills in programming languages, algorithms, data structures, front– and back–end development, and mobile frameworks. They also include custom coding challenges.
Hiring teams can use pre-designed challenges and tests to evaluate candidates, or they can create custom tests. The tests support different response formats such as multiple-choice, essay, or code.
As HackerRank focuses on technical assessments, there are no personality, cognitive ability, or motivational tests. However, hiring teams may choose to add custom questions that judge these general skills.
TestGorilla | HackerRank | |
Cognitive ability tests | Yes | No |
Situational judgment tests | Yes | No |
Job-specific tests | Yes | Yes |
Software tests | Yes | Yes |
Programming tests (including coding challenges) | Yes | Yes |
Language tests | Yes | No |
Personality test | Yes | No |
Culture-add test | Yes | No |
Motivation test | Yes | No |
Typing test | Yes | Yes |
Your own custom tests | Yes | |
Custom questions per assessment | Yes | Yes |
Test recommendations for each job role | Yes | Yes |
Multiple tests per assessment | Yes | Yes |
Developers are responsible for complex and time-critical tasks such as developing, testing, and upgrading software and creating software design.
With job-specific tests, you can assess developers’ proficiency in coding languages, familiarity with web and mobile development frameworks, and other technical skills like deployment and debugging.
TestGorilla’s library includes more than 140 tests to assess developers’ skills. These include tests for programming languages, web and mobile development frameworks, database management, and other technical skills.
We test for proficiency in a number of coding languages, including JavaScript, Python, PHP, Kotlin, and web–development frameworks such as React JS and Django. In addition, you can test developers’ coding skills by allowing them to test in whatever programming language they’re most comfortable using our language-agnostic coding test.
Our tests also measure competence with data structures, syntax, and quality assurance technologies such as performance testing.
You can design custom coding challenges to assess candidates’ ability to handle complex scenarios.
You can also add different users from your hiring team to your account. They can review results and make their own comments and ratings. This can make the hiring process more collaborative.
Finally, TestGorilla saves you time by automatically ranking candidates based on test performance.
HackerRank provides pre-designed assessments that test candidates’ coding language proficiency, ability to handle web and mobile development frameworks, algorithm-thinking, shell scripting, and other technical abilities.
Hiring teams can also create custom assessments and custom coding challenges. The software can record candidates’ screens so you can see how they approach problems.
HackerRank offers live peer coding as well. Through video interviews and screen sharing, candidates and hiring teams can solve coding challenges together.
Hiring teams can also use HackerRank to launch hackathons and other online coding events. These events can make a company more visible to developers and help hiring teams spot potential talent.
However, HackerRank doesn’t offer dedicated personality, culture add, or critical thinking tests that can be combined with coding assessments for a more thorough review of candidates.
TestGorilla | HackerRank | |
Coding languages | JavaScript, Java, Python, PHP, C, C#, C++, CSS, HTML, SQL, Kotlin, Ruby, TypeScript, Go, R, Scala, React, Swift, Julia, Elixir, Dart, Perl, Rust, Solidity, and Erlang | Java, Python, JavaScript, C++, C#, Ruby, PHP, Kotlin, Rust, Swift, and Go |
Web-development frameworks | Yes | Yes |
Mobile-development frameworks | Yes | Yes |
Algorithmic-thinking challenges | Yes | Yes |
Debugging challenges | Yes | Yes |
Language-specific concept challenges | Yes | Yes |
Your own custom coding challenges | Yes | Yes |
Code-playback function | Yes | Yes |
Automated scoring | Yes | Yes |
Live peer coding | No | Yes |
Video interviews enable hiring teams to assess a candidate’s confidence, attitude, and personality. In addition, they help candidates better showcase their abilities.
For a more collaborative and transparent recruitment process, look for pre-employment testing platforms with live and one-way video interviews and custom video questions.
TestGorilla offers one-way video interviews in which candidates record answers to pre-set questions. You can set time limits for responses, ranging from 30 seconds to two minutes. You can then view responses any time you want and add notes to each candidate’s profile.
TestGorilla enables you to play back videos at a speed that suits you.
HackerRank provides video interview features that enable live collaboration between the interviewer and the candidate. Candidates can use a virtual whiteboard, share their screens, and participate in live coding sessions.
Video questions aren’t a major part of HackerRank’s assessments. However, HackerRank has a “Sprint” assessment that supports video as an answer format.
TestGorilla | HackerRank | |
One-way video interviews | Yes | No |
Custom video questions | Yes | Yes |
Record the number of candidates attempts | Yes | No |
Restrict maximum answer length | Yes | Yes |
Record and playback on any device | Yes | Yes |
Rate and comment on video answers | Yes | Yes |
A great candidate experience is an important part of the pre-employment assessment process.
Candidates should be able to complete assessments quickly and easily and get support when needed. Company branding can also help applicants feel connected to the organization they’re testing for.
TestGorilla focuses on accessibility, engagement, and user-friendliness in its candidate experience. Most of our assessments take 10-50 minutes to complete and can be taken using any device – no account required.
We have an intuitive user interface, and we allow test-takers to customize fonts and font sizes. On your end, you can customize assessments with your company’s logo and brand colors, include custom intro and outro videos, and customize invitation and rejection emails.
Applicants receive thorough instructions when they’re invited to an assessment. After they complete an assessment, candidates receive detailed results highlighting their strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. They can access support before, during, and after assessments through our dedicated candidate support area.
HackerRank’s candidate experience is designed to be engaging, motivational, and user-friendly. Candidates receive thorough instructions throughout the process and aren’t required to create a HackerRank account to take assessments.
HackerRank has a candidate support team and a knowledge base. It also provides font and color adjustments.
In terms of branding options, HackerRank enables employers to add a logo and brand colors and customize email templates with specific brand messaging.
TestGorilla | HackerRank | |
Your company’s intro and/or outro video | Yes | No |
Assessments branded with your company logo and colors | Yes | Yes |
Customizable invitation and rejection emails | Yes | Yes |
No login required for candidates | Yes | Yes |
Mobile friendly | Yes | Yes |
Help and support for candidates | Yes | Yes |
Typical assessment length | 10-50 minutes | 30-120 minutes |
Qualifying questions prior to assessment | Yes | Yes |
Pre-employment screening services should be suitable for all types of hiring needs and should accommodate both large and small businesses.
Let’s see which features TestGorilla and HackerRank offer for different-sized companies.
TestGorilla has three pricing plans that are suitable for different hiring needs and companies of all sizes. The free plan, offering five free tests, is great for startups. The Starter plan is perfect for lower-volume hiring and can easily scale as needed. The Pro plan is a good option for enterprises since it includes features like white labeling, ATS integration, and API access.
TestGorilla is fully GDPR compliant, so you never have to stress about data protection – no matter how big or small your business is.
Companies can also use TestGorilla to hire around the world since we offer localized sites in 12 different languages.
HackerRank offers monthly subscription-based plans providing a limited number of test attempts per month.
For example, HackerRank’s Starter plan costs $100 per month and enables hiring teams to test up to 10 candidates. However, if they don’t test 10 candidates within the month, the credits expire and the subscription must be renewed.
This can be beneficial for startups that need to fill a position quickly and want to use the platform for a short period of time. However, it can be inconvenient for businesses that want a more flexible plan and additional time to hire.
HackerRank provides ATS integrations, GDPR compliance, and scalability for larger organizations. However, it doesn’t offer a free plan to accommodate startups or localized websites in different languages.
TestGorilla | HackerRank | |
ATS integration | Yes | Yes |
Multiple users and role-based rights management | Yes | Yes |
GDPR compliant | Yes | Yes |
Multiple candidate invitation options | Yes | Yes |
Public links to invite candidates | Yes | Yes |
Public links for each candidate source | Yes | Yes |
Bulk invite candidates (CSV/XLSX upload) | Yes | Yes |
Track candidate stages from invited to hired | Yes | Yes |
API access | Yes | Yes |
Bulk actions to manage candidates | Yes | Yes |
Quality-control measures are essential to ensure assessments are fair and results are consistent and valid. These processes can include multi-step quality checks, algorithms that improve test quality, incorporation of test-taker and customer feedback, and regular test updates.
TestGorilla has a 28-step quality-control process that ensures test validity, reliability, and consistency in results.
The psychometric team first designs the test structure, and then subject matter experts create the questions. The tests are assessed for scientific validation and accuracy through statistical analysis. TestGorilla works with peer reviewers, copywriters, and more throughout the process.
After the tests are created, they’re tested on a sample group. We maintain a stringent and ongoing monitoring process to consistently improve test quality. This process helps ensure the tests are fair, bias-free, and produce accurate results every time.
We also actively seek and incorporate feedback from customers and candidates to improve our test library and create an even better user experience. Finally, we enable you to test out your assessments yourself before inviting external candidates. You can also invite your team members to do this. This way, you can experience your assessment as a candidate would and make any necessary edits.
HackerRank has a quality-control process to ensure results are accurate, fair, and consistently reliable.
Its internal content team, consisting of subject matter experts, creates the content for questions. The content then goes through several stages of review, including external expert review and statistical analysis.
HackerRank also uses candidate and customer feedback to improve test quality. To ensure fairness and consistency in results, assessments are standardized, following the same pattern and style.
Additionally, HackerRank’s automatic algorithms work to spot patterns in candidate performance and then suggest areas for improvement in test design. HackerRank also conducts adverse-impact studies and sensitivity reviews to find any issues with the subject matter.
TestGorilla | HackerRank | |
Proprietary algorithms that continuously improve the quality of each test | Yes | Yes |
Extensive quality checks before tests go live | Yes | Yes |
Questions replaced after reaching exposure limit | Yes | Yes |
Customer feedback used to improve tests | Yes | Yes |
Test-taker feedback used to improve tests | Yes | Yes |
Online testing is convenient but also poses a risk of candidates getting an unfair advantage through cheating. To maintain the integrity of assessments, pre-employment testing services should have anti-cheating measures in place.
TestGorilla implements a number of anti-cheating measures, including:
Randomizing questions
Replacing questions after 10,000 uses
Taking webcam snapshots during assessments (with candidate’s permission)
Imposing time limits on answers
Disabling copy-paste
Enabling browser lockdown and full-screen mode
Tracking IP addresses
Preventing employers from seeing questions and answers to maintain impartiality
HackerRank also has several anti-cheating features. These include:
Plagiarism detection
Webcam proctoring (with candidate’s permission)
Screen recording
Randomized questions
Browser guard to prevent candidates from opening other tabs
IP address tracking
Prevention of employer access to questions and answers
TestGorilla | HackerRank | |
IP address logging (to avoid multiple attempts by the same candidate) | Yes | Yes |
Logging of a candidate’s location | Yes | Yes |
Webcam snapshots (with the option to turn on/off) | Yes | Yes |
Full-screen mode detection (to avoid research during the test) | Yes | Yes |
Randomized questions per test | Yes | Yes |
Large question pool for each test | Yes (100+) | Yes |
Questions and answers not visible to employers to protect test integrity | Yes | Yes |
Time limit on tests | Yes | Yes |
Copy-paste disabled | Yes | Yes |
Reports and analytics provide valuable insights into each candidate’s performance and make it easy to identify the strongest applicants.
These features make it easy to compare applicants and leave notes on each candidate’s profile – making the hiring process smoother and more collaborative.
TestGorilla provides a detailed report for each candidate at the end of an assessment, as well as real-time information about candidates’ assessment progress. Reports are available in PDF, CSV, and Excel formats and are easily shareable with everyone on your hiring team. You can also include notes on applicants’ profiles for your hiring team to review.
You can view an overall report of candidates who took an assessment, plus scores for individual candidates. You’re also able to see how much time a candidate took on each test in an assessment.
TestGorilla’s filters make it easy to compare candidates based on factors like test scores, responses to custom questions, and answers to multiple-choice questions. You can also add weights to each test in an assessment to customize their impact on candidates’ overall scores. This ensures that candidates’ overall scores reflect the skills that are most important for a role.
Reporting goes deeper with individual question analysis. This shows each candidate’s answers to questions and compares them to other test-takers’ responses.
HackerRank provides a number of reporting and analytics features. These include a dashboard that shows a snapshot of how many candidates took a test, where they are in the process, and their average scores.
Reports include a breakdown of the questions, time taken, and candidate feedback. Hiring managers can review a candidate’s code and whiteboard for relevant questions. Reports are available in PDF, CSV, and Excel formats.
TestGorilla | HackerRank | |
PDF reports of assessments and individual candidates | Yes | Yes |
Excel and CSV reports of assessments and individual candidates | Yes | Yes |
Comprehensive overview of all current and past candidates | Yes | Yes |
Scoring benchmarks for candidates (including percentile rank scoring) | Yes | Yes |
Add your ratings and personal notes for candidates | Yes | Yes |
Customer support can make or break the user experience. Look for a pre-employment testing platform with a responsive support team, multiple support channels, and an extensive knowledge base.
TestGorilla provides customer support through live chat and email. Pro plan customers get a fast-lane support service level agreement.
All customers have access to the online help center, which explains common problems and solutions and offers helpful tutorials on how to use our features.
Customers also get a free training and onboarding tour when they sign up for TestGorilla.
HackerRank offers support via live chat and web tickets, which customers can use to submit queries. It also has a knowledge base and FAQ section on its website.
Custom plan customers are eligible for phone support. HackerRank doesn’t offer live chat support to visitors on its website. That’s reserved for customers only.
TestGorilla | HackerRank | |
Live chat | Yes | Yes |
Help center | Yes | Yes |
Email support | Yes | Yes |
Training and onboarding tour | Yes | Yes |
Phone assistance | Yes (for Business plan customers) | Yes (for Custom plan customers) |
Most pre-employment testing platforms offer flexible plans that suit various hiring needs. While some offer monthly subscriptions, others bill plans annually. Some providers have free trials and even free plans.
TestGorilla has three pricing plans for companies with different hiring needs:
Free: Our free forever plan offers unlimited access to five tests with up to five custom questions.
Starter: The Starter plan starts at $75 per month and can be billed monthly or annually. You can have an unlimited number of active assessments.
Pro: The Pro plan starts at $115 per month and can be billed monthly or annually. It offers ATS integrations, custom branded assessments, video questions, and access to an API.
Pricing for the Starter and Pro plans scales up based on the size of your company. We base company size on the number of full-time equivalent employees (FTEs) you have. For example, two part-time employees who each work half of the standard full-time hours equal one FTE.
Companies with 15 or fewer FTEs must select an annual plan. Larger companies can choose to pay monthly or purchase an annual plan at a discount.
All TestGorilla plans enable you to test an unlimited number of candidates with each assessment.
HackerRank offers three plans that are billed monthly:
Starter: The Starter plan costs $100 per month and offers one user license, tests for 10 candidates per month, and access to 1,000+ questions.
Pro: The Pro plan costs $250 per month and offers five user licenses, tests for 25 candidates per month, and access to 2,000+ questions.
Custom: Custom plans are designed around a business’s needs. This plan includes integrations and a customer success manager.
Customers have only one month to test the number of candidates specified in each package. These are like candidate “credits” that expire if they aren’t used during the month. For example, if a Starter plan customer tests only four customers in one month, the remaining six “credits” won’t roll over to the next month.
TestGorilla | HackerRank | ||
Plan | Price | Plan | Price |
Free | $0 | Free | No free plan |
Starter | From $75 per month for companies with 1-15 employees ($900 paid upfront/monthly pricing available). Unlimited usage | Starter | $100 per month |
Pro | From $115 per month for companies with 1-15 employees ($1380 paid upfront/monthly pricing available). Unlimited usage | Pro | $250 per month |
Custom | Contact a sales rep |
When a pre-employment screening service is easy to use, it saves users tons of time and effort and makes for a more enjoyable experience.
An intuitive user interface, sleek design, and features like a knowledge base help boost ease of use.
It's simple. TestGorilla offers comprehensive, bias-free online screening. Sign up for your free plan and elevate your hiring process with our advanced skills assessment tools.
TestGorilla has a great UX design and easy-to-understand tests to make administering and taking tests a breeze. You’re able to create assessments in minutes, send assessment invites in bulk, and compare assessment results with ease.
Plus, both customers and test-takers can access our knowledge base at any time to get answers to any questions they may have. There are a number of accessibility features available as well.
TestGorilla reviews praise our clean design, exceptional customer service, and overall ease of use.
HackerRank has a simple process to invite and assess candidates. It offers features like automated scoring and detailed reporting, making it convenient to use.
TestGorilla and HackerRank are both popular pre-employment screening platforms. But when comparing the two, TestGorilla stands out as the clear best choice.
With TestGorilla, you can assess candidates for many different job roles, whereas HackerRank focuses specifically on technical recruitment. HackerRank’s test library also isn’t as vast as TestGorilla’s.
Another important difference is in pricing. HackerRank’s monthly subscriptions are more expensive and offer fewer features than TestGorilla’s plans. There’s also no free-forever plan like there is with TestGorilla.
After a careful comparison of TestGorilla and HackerRank, it’s evident that TestGorilla scores higher thanks to its robust test library, great user experience, and affordable pricing.
Skills-based hiring is the most efficient way to find top talent. Not only does it help companies reliably identify top candidates without bias – it also reduces hiring time and recruitment costs.
Want to find the most talented candidates for your open positions? Schedule a free 45-minute live demo or sign up for a free account with TestGorilla to get started today.
Why not try TestGorilla for free, and see what happens when you put skills first.
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