An In-Depth Guide On Technical Tests: Everything You Need to Know

Had we been gifted with clairvoyant abilities to read human minds, hiring would have been so much simpler. But obviously, that seems far-fetched. Had it been easy, recruiters would have easily found solutions to issues such as assessing job candidates’ knowledge, whether they are honest about their resumes and are aligned with the organizational goals. They cannot be sure whether the eagerness to be a part of the organization is genuine or a guise.

There is a surge in demand for tech talent. However, HR professionals entrusted with recruiting technical staff face various challenges in conducting technical recruiting. They must identify eligible candidates, plod through extensive, tech acronyms-laden CVs to churn out relevant information and, during interviews, decode what may be gobbledygook.

Skilled tech workers are available in large numbers. But it’s important to find the balance between a role’s requirements and the candidate’s technical skills. Else, companies may end up spending inordinate sums to pull in candidates for roles that do not match their skills and competencies. Thankfully, automated, structured frameworks, known as technical tests, enable overcoming recruiters’ challenges.

What Is a Technical Test?

A technical test, also known as a role-based test or domain test, is an assessment to understand candidates’ technical abilities, including their skill sets and responses to specific technical problems. It is a technical skills evaluation of prospective hires, which involves evaluating their domain expertise and job knowledge to determine their suitability for specific roles. The technical assessment test aims to measure one’s proficiency at various technical skills, such as coding assessments, sales and marketing assessments, accounting and finance assessments, etc.

”A technical test is a process in which we provide questions or challenges to candidates who either respond to questions or complete the technical challenge so that we can determine if they are suitable for given job opportunities. These can be anywhere from multiple-choice tests to a challenge where the student posts a repository (e.g., in GitHub) of a project where we can see how they solved a problem”, explains Charles Edge, CTO (Chief Technology Officer), Bootstrappers.mn.

Dan Bailey, President, WikiLawn Austin Lawn Care, echoes this sentiment and asserts, ”We use technical tests as part of the hiring process for jobs that require programming or development, but we have also used it to hire content writers and social media experts. Technical tests can give you a quick overview of someone’s skill level. Sometimes applicants will apply to jobs they are not exactly qualified for. You can never tell from someone’s education or even their experience just how good they are at their job. These tests seek to gather more data on that subject objectively.”

A surefire way to determine if someone is the right choice for a job is to see him/her perform the related duties. That is why technical assessments are deemed ideal to evaluate candidates’ suitability. However, technical assessments are not the only decisive factor in ascertaining a person’s suitability for a given position. One must equally consider technical aptitude to evaluate objectively and comprehensively.

Now comes the question: what is technical aptitude?

Well, technical aptitude is not a buzzword to be bandied about; it establishes and outlines a person’s technical abilities. In general, the term ”technical aptitude” refers to a person’s inherent technical intelligence and creativity, which finds expression through proper training in various technical fields. However, many researchers believe that a person’s technical aptitude is influenced by both hereditary and environmental factors. ‘Hereditary’ can significantly impact an individual’s potential, and the environment can give expression to it.

It is a unique combination of technical abilities and personality traits, which makes a person inclined to do a specific technical task better than a non-technical individual and increases his/her chances of success. Learning, practice or other experiences can help maximize the development of this inherent technical ability. Technical aptitude can also be characterized by the following traits: intellectual ability, spatial thinking, technical intelligence, motivation, desire, dexterity and technical creativity.

Now that we have already discussed what embodies the term ”technical aptitude,” we will explore why technical aptitude tests are crucial in making well-informed hiring decisions.

Technical aptitude tests are an excellent way to get the most substantial insights into a person’s technical abilities. These are logically structured assessments that employers can use to assess whether a candidate has an innate technical aptitude to succeed in a specific role. These tests are a kind of screening that HR professionals can employ to narrow down the applicant pool.

These tests can be administered to individuals as the first step in the recruitment process to filter out unsuitable candidates. Such assessments can help recruiters figure out, immediately, which candidates are suitable for the job/role and which are not. An increasing number of companies in the IT (Information Technology) sector and other technical sectors employ these tests to identify and select candidates whose technical talents and personalities match what is required for specific positions.

Aaron Haynes, CEO of Loganix, puts forth his opinion on the subject, ”Technical aptitude tests are important as they clearly show whether someone can resolve technical problems or not. In most cases, we want people who understand and can deal with such problems on their own, so we do not have to waste any extra time training them.”

While there is no shortage of tech talent in the job market, finding the right fit with the apt skills continues to be a daunting proposition. Potential job seekers are many, but the lack of data-driven assessment processes makes it arduous to find the best from the lot.

Besides, most recruiters sourcing tech talents encounter challenges while sifting through resumes in the initial rounds. Although the same cannot be said about sourcing for non-technical roles. It is easier to gain insights into whether a person is worth hiring through a telephonic interview or a chat session. Tech-specific jobs require a holistic assessment of skills. It will not be justifiable to rate someone’s caliber based on a phone conversation alone – especially now, with remote recruiting becoming increasingly prevalent in the backdrop of the COVID-19-induced disruption.

Moreover, most recruiters are not well-versed with the technical nitty-gritty. Hence, they require assistance from subject matter experts in the organization to screen resumes or even screen out ineligible applicants. In these scenarios, introducing technical assessments in the screening process to identify the most suitable candidates for tech roles is the best course of action.

Technical skills assessments can make filtering candidates incredibly easy, based on their knowledge, skills and aptitude and weed out unconscious biases. Only the worthy make it through to the next step of the hiring process. Such assessments can help make the screening process for tech roles significantly easier.

The increasing use of technical skills assessments for meeting the crucial industrial requirement (i.e., human capital) broadens the scope of their applicability. These assessments cover a wide range of core corporate functions, industries, and skills. It is now easy to automate the entire process of evaluating candidates on a variety of technical skills using online assessments, conveniently hosted on technology-led platforms such as Mercer| Mettl’s. It enables recruiters to filter excellent candidates from incompatible ones and conduct hiring at scale without compromising the hiring quality.

Online technical tests are categorized into two types: coding technical test and non-coding technical test. A technical coding test evaluates the coding knowledge and abilities of prospective hires through technical questions and tasks. Technical skills unrelated to coding or programming can be assessed using a non-coding technical assessment.

We often order our favorite cuisine from food ordering apps or grab limited-edition merchandise from e-shopping websites. And when needed, all it takes is an “OK Google” to get things done in a jiffy! All of this, and much more, is possible in the infinite universe of coding. Our ever-evolving quest for technology seems unimaginable without these magnificent codes.

And it is beyond question that professionals working on computer programming, software development, data science and software engineering are highly sought-after these days. This increased demand compels companies to ramp up their hiring efforts to manage tech talent shortages – where coding technical tests come in handy.

Coding technical exams are beneficial for assessing the candidates’ coding abilities. They can help recruiters filter out unsuitable candidates in the initial rounds of the hiring process, ensuring only the deserving ones get to the next level. Although these tests are administered to fresh college graduates, professionals with significant working experience can also be offered an online coding technical assessment.

We understand the sheer bliss of finding someone who can write the correct code in the first attempt, as slogging through mountains of resumes is of no avail to recruiters if it yields no tangible results. However, if they use credible coding tests to assess a candidate’s programming skills, the probability of finding the best of the lot increases significantly.

Types of Online Coding Technical Tests

Coding assessments intend to ease the hiring process for tech roles by evaluating coding competency most effectively. These tests are designed to assess the participant’s coding proficiency and help recruiters screen out the best coders without having to resort to tedious screening processes. Such technical skills assessments can help ease the tremendous burden on any organization due to wrong hiring.

There are many different types of coding assessments, each designed to ascertain candidates’ suitability for specific job roles and positions. Mercer| Mettl offers a wide range of coding tests that can be organized into categories based on technology and technical skills employed in each technology, as listed below:

Coding Technical Assessment Tools Uncovered

Coding assessment tools take the guesswork out of technical hiring processes by providing recruiters with new-age, digital techniques to help remove subjectivity from the candidate selection process. These technical assessment tools can obtain crucial information about an individual’s coding prowess and help employers verify the claims made by him/her. These automated skill-testing tools can help hiring managers delve deeper into candidates’ knowledge, experience and programming skills.

Another critical reason for turning to coding assessment tools stems from the challenges in assessing the candidates’ potential accurately and objectively. For example, if a web developer is asked to solve a problem in a plain text editor, despite being a knowledgeable person, he/she may end up producing non-working codes. This would not happen if that candidate worked in a professional code editor that can detect typos. Moreover, such tools also equip recruiters with the ability to collaborate and work alongside a candidate in real-time.

A comparative analysis

Below, we will give you the lowdown on several types of new-age coding assessment tools and detail the key features of each tool.

Coding assessments, sometimes also known as technical skills assessments, are automated online tools that simplify technical hiring and training requirements. These screening tools are either available in a standardized format or custom build from a vast library of programming tests, depending on the clients’ needs. These assessments are also at the core of conducting standardized, data-backed interviews, enabling pair programming between an interviewer and a candidate.

When it comes to creating a future-ready workforce through learning and development, such assessments can form the basis for creating technical training modules based on skill sets or competency frameworks. Furthermore, these technical tests can be structurally adapted to conduct phase-wise online hackathons to identify the top talent.

Coding simulators are an excellent tool for hiring experienced coders and assessing real-world project abilities for various roles: Front-end, Back-end, QA (Quality Assurance), Full stack, Data Science, DevOps, etc. These tools have an auto-grading feature to conduct an effective and unbiased evaluation through pre-determined test cases. Coding simulators come with in-built support for all major technologies and languages. Such simulators provide a comprehensive coding environment to test the coding skills of Developers, QA Engineers, and many others. Listed below are various types of simulators based on their respective technologies:

Coding interview platforms are AI-powered, digital coding environments to simulate the technical elements of coding interviews. These platforms are an excellent hiring tool using which recruiting managers can conduct a hassle-free and unbiased interview process. Their integrated development environment provides support for multiple programming languages. The platform can generate AI-assisted insights on interviewee’s code quality and technical approach and provides ease of recording and reviewing the entire interview session.

How to Set Up a Coding Technical Assessment

You need to understand the process behind a technical exam to ensure setting up an effective assessment. Here, we give the lowdown on how to structure a valid test in easy-to-follow steps.

Step 1: Creating a strategic hiring plan

Start by clearly defining your hiring goals before designing an assessment. What is the purpose of this evaluation? Which skills need to be assessed? Are the roles, complexities and time being adequately defined? This inquisitive approach will help you identify a well-defined objective.

Step 2: Finding the right set of tools

Once you have devised a strategic hiring plan, you should seek the best tools to ease the administrative burden of setting up technical exams. To this end, you can employ advanced coding assessment tools that are implemented in a three-step process of filtration, in-depth analysis and live interview.

The first screening process involves using pre-built MCQs for all major coding roles to filter out unwanted candidates in the initial stages. The following process consists of using advanced role-based coding simulators to analyze and choose the best among qualified candidates. The last step is to use the previous screening rounds’ results to perform the final assessment of a coder’s potential via a real-time coding interview.

Non-coding technical assessments are often used to assess the candidates’ overall knowledge of specific domains instead of determining their coding chops. These online technical tests measure technical competencies unrelated to coding, such as project management, operations, etc. Non-coding assessments can help recruiters hire the most qualified talent with in-depth functional knowledge. The tests cover a wide range of corporate functions (HR, sales, marketing, etc.) and industries (retail, BPO, etc.)

Types of Non-Coding Technical Assessments

There are several types of non-coding tests required by employers for talent assessment purposes. These technical skills tests are categorized on their functionalities and industrial applications. Some of these are listed below:

By Functions

Sales assessments

Sales assessments are competency-based frameworks to identify the critical behavioral and cognitive competencies required for sales professionals. With these assessments, recruiters can evaluate a sales professional’s underlying potential for each job role, from selling apparel in stores to providing complex sales-centric solutions to CXOs.

HR assessments

HR assessments are pre-employment technical skills assessments to assess candidates’ expertise in HR-specific areas such as communication, conflict resolution, negotiation, team building, engagement, etc. These tests help employers understand talent strengths and gaps to determine how well an applicant’s personality and skills align with a particular role.

Marketing assessments

Marketing assessments are an ideal skills assessment tool to identify the best candidates for marketing roles from many applicants. These assessments are crucial for a faster hiring process by eliminating biases from the decision-making process, helping recruiters avoid wrong hires and find the best marketing talent in no time.

Operations assessments

Operations assessments are utilized to assess candidates’ knowledge in business operations. The test enables recruiters to screen out ideal candidates from a large pool of applicants by evaluating their job readiness and professional competency. The test helps screen suitable candidates for operations department positions.

Customer support assessments

Customer support assessments are ideal pre-employment screening tools to test candidates for customer support/service representative positions. Good candidates show an inclination to connect with customers by putting in all efforts to solve their queries or problems. They demonstrate excellent interpersonal skills, problem-solving abilities and good written communication skills. Recruiters can use customer support assessments to evaluate job applicants’ skills vis-à-vis the job requirements.

Accounting and finance assessments

Accounting and finance assessments are automated, structured assessments to gauge a candidate’s expertise in analyzing, processing and conveying financial information of an organization or business entity. These assessments help screen applicants for various roles related to this domain, such as financial accountant, management accountant, financial analyst and several other related functions.

By Industry

Defining Competency Frameworks for Technical Assessments

Technical hiring is integral to every business venture because it is an enabler that keeps the basic organizational framework glued together. It makes sense that tech hiring managers and recruiters are always on the lookout for niche talent who would align with the company’s vision and adhere to the work culture to deliver quality output. That is why a competency framework can help organizations define the level of skills, characteristics and knowledge required from their workforce. Such a framework can also help employees expand their skills and grow in their roles.

Now, when defining competency frameworks for technical assessments, nothing seems as impressively convincing as Mercer| Mettl’s competency library for technology-based competencies. There is also a comprehensive report on implementing technical competency frameworks in organizations, should you wish to delve further into the subject.

What Tools Are Used for Conducting a Non-Coding Technical Assessment?

There are several available tests for assessing candidates on non-coding technical skills. The three main types of tests used for this purpose are:

Objective-type questions

Objective-type questions are fact-based questions that assess a candidate’s knowledge across skills and subskills. These questions are based on objective reality and not subjective interpretation and are available either in the form of fill-in-the-blanks or multiple-choice questions.

Caselets

Caselets are presented in a set of information available in the form of a paragraph. Candidates are supposed to read the available information and are required to organize the given data or draw a table to solve the problem. These tests assess a candidate’s ability to look at questions from multiple perspectives and give answers accordingly.

Case Study Simulator

Case Study Simulator is an innovative and effective technique to gauge a candidate’s problem-solving and analytical ability. The tool simulates an actual case-based discussion to understand how well a candidate performs in a situation that mimics a real-life work scenario.

Combining other pre-employment tools to create a holistic battery of tests

As discussed above, non-technical skills contribute to efficient task performance. Still, we can certainly not rule out an essential parameter that decides whether the candidate will fit well into the corporate culture – culture fit. Cultural fit indicates the level of compatibility between an employee and an employer. It implies whether someone fits appropriately within an organization’s culture, including its systems, beliefs, processes, hierarchical structure and customs. For this reason, we need to include other pre-employment tools to create a holistic assessment battery for identifying potential candidates, as listed below:

Psychometric assessment tools are psychological measurement tools to assess traits or characteristics that are not readily observable and measurable. Qualities such as intelligence, personality, beliefs and attitude are essential to understand and evaluate. These tools make underlying or less obvious attributes prominent and noticeable, helping recruiters/employers ascertain a candidate’s fitment for a given role. There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach for applying these tools because it will be a flawed approach to assess all candidates for the same traits. Listed below are some of the key characteristics these tools aim to assess:

• Personality traits
• Cognitive ability
• Prediction of behavioral tendencies

Behavioral assessment tools are reliable and valid tools to gain insights into individual behavioral style because the way a person behaves speaks volumes about his/her behavioral competency. A person’s preferred method of communicating, handling setbacks and teamwork skills can give the employer substantial insights into whether he/she would be an excellent cultural fit for the organization. Given below are some of the most sought-after characteristics that these tools assess:

• Critical thinking
• Curiosity
• Problem-solving
• Proactivity

Cognitive assessment tools are screening tools to assess an individual’s cognitive abilities. These tools are used to understand a candidate’s reasoning abilities and general thinking patterns. Such tools consider minimum scoring to determine the intelligence levels of candidates. Listed below are some of the crucial skills these tools evaluate:

• Numerical ability
• Data analysis
• Decision-making

Best Practices for Setting Up a Non-Coding Technical Assessment

Setting up a mechanism for administering non-coding technical assessments can make the talent assessment process effortless. Here is how you can set up an assessment in four simple steps:

The first step would be to identify and define core competencies required in candidates for respective roles. Mercer| Mettl’s comprehensive competency frameworks can also come in handy for this purpose.

Secondly, the candidates must be asked to undergo screening tests ( it could be a combination of psychometric assessments and non-coding technical assessments) to assess their readiness for already-figured-out competencies.

The next step would be to use the report on assessment results to whittle down a huge applicant pool and handpick the suitable candidates for the next round of interviews.

Finally, candidates who tick all the boxes on the employer’s checklist are well-qualified for the job.

There are two cutting-edge technologies that can be used in unison to conduct online technical tests:

Let us discuss these tools in detail.

While conducting online technical tests, one cannot overlook the three critical aspects of the implementation: scalability, security and convenience. That is why online assessment platforms can significantly boost the process of conducting technical skills tests. The online examination platform is an all-in-one exam management tool that provides end-to-end exam management services, right from creating technical assessment questions, scheduling and managing tests to analyzing assessment responses. It is a robust system that can work at scale and integrate with a suite of proctoring tools to simplify conducting technical assessments. We can segment the entire technical skills assessment process into three phases to understand how the assessment software works.

Online proctoring technology, which includes a comprehensive suite of advanced AI-based and human-based proctoring tools, works parallel to the technical assessment process. When a candidate appears for an online exam, he/she is required to log into the system on which an online proctor is already connected. Firstly, the test-taker must undergo an identity verification process wherein the remote proctor shall verify his/her identity. The proctor would validate the individual’s identity against the ID proof submitted at the time of the registration. After completing identity verification, the candidate can take the online exam.

With remote proctoring, invigilators can keep a tab on candidates’ screens from afar and maintain a safe and secure exam environment, ensuring a cheat-free environment. Proctoring technology works in tandem with assessment platforms to provide a seamless online technical exam experience.

Technical tests can be a challenging experience for candidates. Such exams are their golden opportunity to land a job at their dream organization. So, the struggle is real! Students must have some handy tips for preparing for such technical skills assessments. Here are some pointers to help candidates sail through the exams easily.

Step 1: Get the basics right

Hard work has no alternative. Small steps with the right approach can lead you to success, given your foundation is solid. You can start by listing down the important topics you will be assessed on in the technical exam. The complexity of questions is dependent on the test provider and organization administering the test, but you can do focused research on the most asked questions pertaining to your domain. It always helps to gain an understanding of the job role and the company for which you are aspiring. This way, you can better understand what skills and competencies employers desire.

Step 2: Practice mock tests

Simple as it may sound, many candidates fail to stick to this routine. It is one of the most important things you can do to increase your chances of success. Ensure you browse through all prior technical test questions and answers and online mock tests while subjecting yourself to strict exam conditions (considering time, discipline and self-integrity). After completing the test, review your submitted answers to find your strengths and areas that need improvement. Once you are aware of topics that need attention, you can devote additional time to those. This way, you will become more mentally prepared for the big day.

Step 3: Make learning fun!

Practicing questions is crucial for developing a familiarity with the format of the assessment, but this is not the only skills improvement technique. You can make your learning process much more interactive by thinking a bit differently. How about trying some online puzzles or games that test your technical potential? You will be surprised to find that these fun activities do contribute positively to your learning sessions.

Step 4: Get a good grasp of complex questions

Ensuring you have gained proficiency in complex technical concepts is critical to your success. The more you practice, the easier you will find to tackle complex technical concepts. Also, brushing up on fundamentals is equally crucial if you want to leave nothing to chance. You can also develop a habit of performing basic arithmetic calculations without using a calculator and performing measurement conversions from metric to imperial and vice versa. Moreover, keep yourself abreast with the latest developments in the technical domain.

Step 5: Make technical jargon your strength

The technical domain is full of jargon every aspirant should know. If you are not well-versed in the terminology used in the technical aptitude test, your preparations might go awry. You can read technical reports and related media materials to understand the most frequently used jargon in the tech industry. If you ever come across any unfamiliar word, jot it down and keep it as a ready reckoner, should you wish to revise it.

There is no overnight formula to achieve success in life. The key to achieving success lies in continually honing your skills. It would help if you never stopped practicing and, eventually, you would meet your goals.

Recruiting tech professionals in the current job market can be tedious and strenuous. Given the pervasive nature of technology, it has become necessary for companies in every industry to focus on advanced skillsets that a talented tech candidate possesses. The rapid technological advancements and industrial disruptions have catalyzed change in the job market, leading to an increased demand for top tech talent. However, finding and hiring qualified candidates is still a prevailing challenge.

The role of HR professionals has become even more critical in that context. They are at the forefront of dealing with the challenges of finding qualified candidates for technical positions. The lack of time and resources may make it difficult for them to make accurate recommendations to managers of the departments concerned with the hiring. That is where technical assessments can come in handy. These pre-employment assessments can help streamline the talent assessment process, save work hours and financial resources, and keep the process immune to wrong hiring.