Is Hackerrank Good Enough and Worth the Money? My Review

Hackerrank combines enterprise talent scouting with interview prep features for programmers and software developers.

As such, the platform has become a hotcake for companies, enterprises, and developers who are job hunting.

If you are in the market for a tech interview prep platform that will also connect you to job opportunities, chances are Hackerrank will be one platform others might recommend for you.

But before you jump on it, you want to know it through and through. This review will walk through everything you need to know about Hackerrank, who it’s meant for, its features, pros and cons, and pricing.

Let’s dive in.

Overview of Hackerrank

Hackerrank is a technical skills training and assessment platform for companies, software developers, and programmers.

Vivek Ravisanker and Hari Karunanidhi designed Hackerrank to meet the needs of companies and businesses in terms of seeking out, evaluating, and hiring qualified software engineers.

At the same time, the platform serves as an online coding environment where aspiring software engineers (SWEs) can hone their skills in preparation for interviews and be put in line for companies to spot.

Hackerrank allows employers to create role-specific challenges and invite candidates to participate in the challenges.

Hackerrank then automatically reviews, grades, and ranks the candidates based on their performance.

Employers will then be able to estimate candidates’ level of competence and hire the most qualified ones.

Hackerrank thus aims to provide every company and business with the tools they need to direct more time and resources from reviewing resumes to interviewing high-quality candidates.

Companies and businesses can also use Hackerrank to create an effective hiring plan that:

It is tailored to their exact needs and accesses candidates with just the relevant skills.
Screens candidates on the depth of their skillset and samples their ability to apply these skills in actual world usage.
Allows interviewers to interview remotely and watch candidates show off their programming skills in real-time via the IDE (Integrated Development Environment) and,
Review candidate scores and compare them with others in your candidate pool and the Hackerrank developer community.

The interview prep side of the platform is also interesting; as we will see later is reviewed

For interview prep, Hackerrank provides training on a variety of topics related to coding and programming.

Software engineers who are expecting an interview soon have access to what Hackerrank calls interview preparation kits (IPKs)

IPKs are expert-curated sets of quizzes and mock interviews that one can use when they have limited preparation time.

Who is it for?

Hackerrank isn’t just an interview prep solution or a hiring platform. It serves both use cases.

Companies and businesses looking for talents can use Hackerrank as a multi-purpose platform for live training, interviewing, and hiring.

Individuals looking to enhance their existing skill set or who want to upskill can also leverage the platform’s features.

Let’s now highlight the categories of users on Hackerrank today.

Hackerrank for Programmers

Hackerrank’s design has much focus on programmers.

Programmers at any level can use the features on Hackerrank devoted to learning programming courses, getting certifications, and even studying what is trending in the industry and how to redefine their learning plans in the future.

A closer look at what Hackerrank has in store for programmers will explain better.

For newbies, Hackerrank has the suggestion feature that brings the in-demand programming skills to the surface. This is very helpful as it helps beginners know precisely what to start with to start their programming careers.

At the same time, as you learn with Hackerrank, your progress is visible to potential employers roaming the platform for new talents.

Intermediate programmers are not left out. They can take the courses the platform provides to update their knowledge.

They also have the community at their disposal if they have any tricky spots. Users can flaunt their skills and get performance and progress feedback.

Advanced programmers are also in for a treat. Hackerrank’s insight feature helps them to keep abreast of job trends in the industry.

And certification courses on the platform play their part in helping to make a programmer’s CV stand out.

Hackerrank for Employers and Interviewers

Hackerrank is aiming to be the go-to choice of talent marketplace for recruiters.

Hackerrank has over 18 million developers, ranked based on performance and other metrics.

Employers can set their interview questions, candidates can solve them, and the results will be shared with the recruiter.

Talk about live interviews, live training sessions, business projects, and so on; Hackerrank has provision for all of that.

Hackerrank for Programming Enthusiasts

Solving challenges can be an excellent way to pass the time. It exercises the mental faculties in a way that can be fun.

So you don’t need to be a job hunter or in search of certification. You can hop on the platform and play around with the programming questions.

Hackerrank for Certification

Hackerrank is an excellent place to look into when you don’t have much experience and want better luck impressing your potential employers.

Hackerrank for Instructors

Hackerrank is an excellent place to host courses as a programming instructor.

The platform provides tools for student engagement and interaction. It allows instructors to assess students’ progress and skills through a live coding environment.

The live tools provided can also be used to focus more on a student or a group of students

Hackerrank for Job Seekers

Hackerrank also beckons job seekers. Because of its rather specific methods of ranking candidates, big companies, including many among the Fortune 100, use Hackerrank to source talents.

To vie for the top positions in Hackerrank’s leaderboard, a candidate must continue to add value to himself.

Taking the certification courses can significantly boost one’s chances of landing their dream job. If they clear all the tests, they may find a spot in the top wanted positions.

Hackerrank Features and Services

Hackerrank boasts a vast repertoire of features and services that cater to everyone’s needs a developer or a company may have.

From features that make the job search more accessible to those that aid employers recruiting processes, here are several ways Hackerrank sets itself apart from the competition.

The features are grouped into the following categories: interview prep, certification, hiring features, candidate pool, candidate screening, instructor-led training, insights, and contest features.

Interview Prep

Hackerrank, besides being a platform of talents, also has provision for interview prep.

Users can use the tutorials on about 14 topics, including but not limited to Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence.

There is a brief tutorial on each topic that uses only text, and then the user can tackle the following problems.

Or, you can use the interview preparation kit to learn from a specially formulated regimen of tutorials and challenges.

Online Interview

This is not to be confused with the interview prep discussed above.

Instead, this feature allows recruiters to interview candidates remotely through the integrated development environment (IDE).

Through this means, candidates can solve code in real-time and be evaluated by the interviewer.

Certification

Certifications can make our resumes sound more convincing.

Since Hackerrank is a well-recognized platform, any certifications it issues will have a lot of weight.

A registered user can hop into the platform, complete any of the certification tests, and be among the list of recommended candidates.

Hiring Features

Hackerrank makes the hiring process easy for employers.

It makes available tools that enable the company to plan the hiring process, screen, interview, and rank candidates.

Candidate Pool

The candidate pool comprises all the tested and ranked developers on Hackerrank who could be potential candidates.

Hackerrank has millions of developers in its candidate pool which is one reason many companies and businesses love to come to the platform to fish for qualified candidates.

The candidate pool also gives companies an idea of what to expect from their interview candidates to set reasonable expectations.

Instructor-led Training

Hackerrank makes it possible and easy for instructors to set up their courses. The IDE can be used as interaction and engagement tools to create a realistic teaching environment.

Insights

Hackerrank uses AI to squeeze out every bit of data from assessments and candidates’ performance.

It then organizes that data into recommendations and criteria to help firms and businesses optimize the quality of their assessments.

Additionally, it collects insights from what other key players in the industry have done right and brings them as suggestions to implement.

This helps to save employers a lot of trial and error and focus more on optimizing their assessments for specific roles.

Links to Job Opportunities

As far as job opportunities are concerned, Hackerrank gives its users a decent edge.

Thanks to its high standards, Hackerrank is one of the places top companies like Google go to find quality candidates.

Once you subscribe to the platform, your skills and progress will immediately be visible to employers looking for your skill set.

Once your profile is noticed, you can get invitations from employees to participate in customized assessment tests.

Hackerrank Benefits and Pros ??

Hackerrank undoubtedly has a lot of value to offer. It can cut out a lot of stress and make it easier for developers to find jobs and for employers to discover talent.

Let’s now look at the benefits it offers.

Easy User Onboarding

It’s straightforward to register with Hackerrank and start to enjoy all its features.

All it takes is a three-step process that goes thus: sign up, fill in your details and create your password.

This makes Hackerrank rank among the most accessible platforms to join. The user experience is also satisfactory, free from hiccups.

Simple Interface

Hackerrank’s UI is straightforward to navigate. Icons are arranged in a manner that makes them easy to spot without getting in the way of each other.

The colors are also eye-friendly and offer just the right amount of contrast.

Versatile IDE

Hackerrank has an IDE that is on par with or above its competitors.

It supports up to 35 languages which is a very high count among its contemporaries.

And there is the live coding feature that allows multiple users to work on code in real-time.

Real-time Interaction Feature

Using their feature working together with IDE, users can interact with one another.

The main interaction tools are present, such as chat, audio, and video.

Over 1600 Questions

Few technical assessment platforms can compete with Hackerrank for multiple questions and challenges.

Hackerrank has one of the largest databases of questions in programming, quizzes, or challenges on the internet.

That’s why it is suitable for creating custom assessments, whether they are multiple-choice or coding questions.

Wide Range of Programming Languages

Again, it’s not easy to find a tech interview platform that supports as many programming languages as Hackerrank does.

On Hackerrank, there are up to 40 programming languages. Each of these languages is available in the IDE for users to select from.

Hackerrank’s extensive support for programming languages is a compelling feature of the platform as it is very likely that your language is on the list.

Hackerrank Downsides and Cons ??

As good as Hackerrank is, you can still spot some rough patches that need to be ironed out.

You can examine the flaws in more detail below.

No System Design Training

Hackerrank gives much attention to coding, data structure, and algorithms. These topics are crucial in themselves but are not everything.

I believe system design is something Hackerrank should consider adding to their curriculum for tutorials.

Explanations are Too Lengthy

Ask anyone who has used Hackerrank for practice, and he will tell you that the vast chunks of text can do an excellent job at hiding some points.

It would be a massive improvement if Hackerrank made the explanations more straightforward to save time when studying.

Certification can be a Tough Call

Okay, now, this is one area where Hackerrank might not take all the blame.

But it still gives a slight headache that once one fails a certification test, that’s all over.

And I get it. Many companies follow the same pattern. However, it can be very frustrating, and a little leniency could help.

Lack of Details on Career Fairs

That’s another problem with Hackerrank. Their career fairs can be very rewarding, but you get little or no information on how to prepare for them.

You don’t receive information on the companies that will feature, which throws you off balance.

Hackerrank Pricing – Is Hackerrank Free or Paid?

Hackerrank is both free and paid. It depends on who the user is.

Developers and others who want to use the platform for interview prep get free, but enterprises have to pay.

The monthly plans are billed in different packages: interview, individual, team, and enterprise.

Details of each pricing plan are given below:

Interview: $25 monthly if you subscribe for annual billing and $50 monthly for monthly billing.

Individual: $249 monthly billed annually or $319 monthly for monthly billing.

Team: $599 monthly for annual billing or $819 billed every four months.

Enterprise: This plan is customized to the user’s business needs and is set upon negotiating with customer support.

There is no free plan for business users, but there is a 14-day free trial for testing the features.

Is Hackerrank Good Enough?

That’s probably the question on your mind now.

Short answer: yes

Long answer: Hackerrank has flaws, as any other job and talent sourcing platform.

The work Hackerrank does to help developers source jobs and assist enterprises in sourcing and hiring talent is remarkable.

It has every feature that enterprises need for screening, interviewing, and hiring talents.

The reporting and feedback are excellent, plus it has something for every programmer or developer, whether advanced or beginner.

Hackerrank is worth recommending. It’s free for developers. And if you’re a business owner thinking whether Hackerrank will have your back when selecting hiring candidates, of course, it will.

Wrapping Up

This review has aimed to establish these facts about Hackerrank; it comes in handy when preparing for interviews, it’s a great platform to showcase your talents, and businesses can use it for talent sourcing.

Tech institutions, physical and online, are churning out many tech graduates each year.

That is increasing the competition for the available jobs. However, it also means companies have more choices than before.

And again, that will lead to business establishments raising the bar for qualified candidates.

Whichever side of the business arena you are on, using a tool like Hackerrank can give you better chances either of being noticed or of hiring the right people.

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