What is Drupal? (With features and uses)

Drupal is a free, open-source content-management system. It’s a simple tool that many individuals and businesses use every day to develop and maintain their websites.

Given its expanding global community, it’s important employers find and hire Drupal developers who can harness the software’s abilities to help businesses grow. In this article, we’ll explain what the Drupal framework is and discuss its features and benefits.

And we’ll also explore the steps you can take to hire a Drupal developer, using TestGorilla’s Drupal test to ensure data-drive, effective hiring.

What is Drupal?

Drupal is an open-source software developed with PHP under the GNU Public License that you can customize for simple websites or complex web applications. It has unmatched inherent qualities that make it stand out compared to other content-management systems. 

For instance, you can download Drupal freely, and users can modify the platform to suit their needs. The software grows with the user, with various free themes and modules to attract your desired web audience and grow a website community.

What are Drupal’s key features?

Drupal has several features you’ll continue to discover the more you use the software, enabling you to leverage its full potential. The latest version, Drupal 9, boasts new features that make it easier to use than previous versions. 

For example, users can now utilize its new locations and fields tool. If it proves insufficient, it uses the CKeditor to post content seamlessly. Other features in Drupal 9 include a helpful tour and quick edits.

Below are the major qualities, tools, and features of Drupal:

• Editing and authoring: It has a WYSIWYG editing and authoring tool that enables easy content searching, drafting, editing, publishing, and updating.

• Layout building: Drupal uses a layout builder, an effective no-code solution for users to build interactive pages with drag-and-drop UI and templated layouts.

• Customizable workflow: This helps you monitor content updates and preview previous versions.

• Media support: Its media supports local video, audio, files, images, and other remote content from social media platforms.

• Media library: Its media library lets users include existing media in a website and upload newer items.

• Caching systems: Drupal uses performance-optimized caching systems to improve a business’ scalability and performance.

• Theming structure: It has a theme system that enables users to build a unique and responsive front end and choose a framework based on brand policies.

• Form building: Drupal has a flexible form builder that enables users to create several forms, from basic contact forms to complex application forms.

• Scheduling: It uses a planner that helps users schedule their next content publication date and recommends add-on modules.

• Meta-Tagging: It has customizable and user-friendly URLs and metatags for each content.

• Search integration: Drupal has extensive search integration with enterprise-grade search engines.

• Data migrating: It uses an effective migrating system that enables easy data importation into Drupal.

• Accessibility: It uses a multilingual UI and content that can foster accessibility compliance.

Why use Drupal?

To decide if you need a top Drupal developer, you need to know why it may prove more beneficial for your needs than other CMSs. Being aware of Drupal’s functionality helps you understand the full benefits you can expect from a developer.

With that in mind, below are three reasons to use Drupal for your business or company:

1. Flexible integration

Drupal’s most notable benefit is its ability to assist users in building and maintaining different content types, such as statistics, podcasts, vlogs, and blogs. As such, users can create rich content for their preferred market in media and eCommerce.

2. Security

The security of content-management systems is crucial, and Drupal offers the most effective security system for users. Drupal provides frequent patches and is a reliable framework for enterprise clients to ensure optimal user satisfaction.

Top companies use Drupal as the main CMS for their web apps and sites because of its expert security teams and advanced hosting providers.

3. Scalability

Scalability is another distinctive feature of Drupal when compared to other CMSs in the market. A basic understanding of Drupal’s operation is enough to increase your web pages’ content and traffic without major adjustments. It provides great service even when alternating between traffic spikes.

How to hire top Drupal developers

With Drupal’s qualities and functions, it’s clear that finding a developer that can properly harness its abilities is essential. Here are six simple steps to find and hire the ideal Drupal developer for your company:

1. Build a candidate profile​

The first step when hiring a candidate for any role is understanding the job requirements. Create a detailed candidate profile that contains the duties and expectations of the role. Good candidate profiles form the foundation for effective hiring processes.

2. Prepare a job description

After establishing the job requirements, you can determine the qualifications and abilities needed to succeed in the role. For example, you can aim to hire a Drupal developer with proficiency in basic programming operations like HTML, PHP, and JavaScript.

Besides technical abilities, consider the soft skills required to ensure quality performance: Critical-thinking, creative, and problem-solving skills are all needed for the role.

Having compiled this information, draft a comprehensive Drupal developer job description, including the required technical and soft skills. You should also include the company name, duties, expectations, and payment offer in your job description.

You can gain more insights into the intricacies of preparing a good job description with a credible job description guide and template.

3. Shortlist candidates

After posting the job description across relevant job boards and platforms, you’ll start receiving applications. Your job description will help you limit applications to only eligible candidates, and you can use ATS or manual methods to screen applications.

4. Use a pre-employment test

You can shortlist candidates with a credible pre-employment test that can help you evaluate candidates’ skills and expertise. You can also assess candidates’ abilities to learn unfamiliar tools.

You can use pre-employment tests to assess the role’s soft skills, cognitive abilities, and culture fit. TestGorilla’s pre-employment assessments prove particularly useful. 

TestGorilla’s Drupal test, which works best for developers with two or three years of experience, uses situational judgment questions to find applicants with applied skills for real-life challenges. It covers module development, configuration, themes and templates, and working with the most popular third-party Drupal software. 

Successful candidates should have the necessary skills and experience to create features on Drupal sites, enhance a site’s UI and responsiveness, and execute several program elements with the PHP programming language.

5. Interview top candidates

After conducting the pre-employment test, the results show you the most exceptional candidates. You can invite the most suitable for an interview and ask relevant technical questions, assessing their composure and confidence.

Also, ask them about their soft skills while observing their personality traits and ethics. Remember to ask relevant questions that allow candidates to express their ideas and demonstrate their persona. You can get sample interview questions online to aid your efforts.

6. Make a good offer

After interviewing candidates and making your final decision, ensure you offer a fair compensation package. It helps if your offer has attractive bonuses and benefits proportional to the potential value of the prospective employee.

Bonus tip to reinvent your hiring process

Today’s world requires swift and efficient information exchange system to ensure business growth and surpass the competition. Having a strong and fast website is now crucial to succeed in the modern market landscape.

With advancing changes in the tech industry and other fields, you must also adjust your employment methods to examine candidates’ actual skills. Today’s world proves that pre-employment tests are more effective than CVs.

You can use the test results to guide your interview process with each candidate. Register with TestGorilla today to reinvent your hiring process and secure the best for your business.