The most effective way to assess cloud engineering skills

As a result, the role of a cloud engineer has become crucial in organizations, increasing the need for a well-defined cloud engineer skills assessment plan.

A cloud engineer is responsible for managing and maintaining an organization’s entire digital infrastructure. As organizations transition to cloud computing, skilled cloud engineers are increasingly becoming more valuable and sought after.

A suitable cloud engineer needs to have a plethora of technical skills to accomplish their day-to-day job responsibilities. They need to demonstrate a combination of hard skills and soft skills to succeed in their roles.

Technical skills

Soft skills

The workplace underwent a major transformation in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a study by Zippia, 94% of enterprises today use cloud services, and 67% of enterprise infrastructure is now cloud-based. Given the flexibility, speed, and accessibility offered by cloud-based services, numerous organizations have transitioned from physical servers to cloud-based systems. So, why are cloud engineering skills important?

Improved cybersecurity:

Cloud-based networks are more open to cyberattacks, which requires cloud engineers with good cybersecurity skills to resolve operating system vulnerabilities.

Efficient operations:

Cloud engineers can help identify inefficiencies and improvement areas. They can also optimize the organization’s digital operations for efficient, streamlined business processes.

Reduced costs:

Good cloud engineers can easily find new ways to maximize the cost-effectiveness of an organization’s digital operations.

As discussed, the role of a cloud engineer involves implementing, managing, and optimizing cloud-based computing software and requires IT specialists to oversee the same. During hiring, cloud engineer skills assessments are to be used to evaluate the competencies of a candidate as a cloud engineer. The assessment should typically analyze whether a candidate possesses the skills required for the job, which include:

Skills and traits tests

Traditional, resume-based hiring may prove to be inefficient while hiring cloud engineers, as ascertaining a candidate’s actual skill set requires tangible results from a comprehensive assessment.

Recruiters can utilize skills and traits assessments to evaluate the hard skills and soft skills of candidates for the cloud engineer position.

Some of the top assessment categories that recruiters must consider adding to their hiring processes include:

• Cloud computing skills tests
• Operating systems tests
• Coding skills tests
• Cybersecurity skills assessments

Recruiting skilled candidates for technical job roles can get a bit difficult at times, especially given the fact that recruiters generally don’t necessarily always possess an intimate understanding of the discipline they are hiring for. Even if the interviewer is well-versed in the technical field, it is still vital for them to be able to assure that the candidate they are considering hiring as a cloud engineer possesses all the technical skills and soft skills that the job role demands.

Mercer | Mettl provides a range of assessments and skills tests that recruiters can seamlessly integrate into their processes. These tests for hiring cloud computing professionals evaluate whether the candidates have the relevant technical and soft skills, even before they are invited to the first interview round. Some popular assessments by Mercer | Mettl that organizations use are Microst Azure Devops Assessment and AWS Devops Engineer test. These assessments are designed to allow recruiters to source the most suitable candidates from the talent pool.

Utilizing cloud engineer skills assessments during the hiring procedure can bring several benefits, including being able to source the most suitable talent for open technical positions that are an excellent organizational fit as well, reduced attrition and training costs, and the establishment of unbiased, skill-based hiring processes.