We are very excited to announce that we have now fully integrated the CodeScreen workflow with GitHub Actions!

GitHub Actions provides a modern, best-in-class CI/CD platform built on top of GitHub. It allows developers to automatically build, test, and deploy code straight from their GitHub repos.

Now, each time a candidate pushes a new commit to the GitHub repo that has been created for their CodeScreen test, GitHub Actions will automatically build and test their solution. Candidates can then view the result of the build directly in GitHub.

The GitHub Actions integration hugely enhances the experience for candidates taking CodeScreen tests, as they can now see immediate feedback on their solution.Candidates could previously build and test their solution locally, but allowing them to see how their solution runs in the same environment that we run our analysis in provides them with full confidence that their solution is working correctly.

This CI workflow is also one that is familiar to all candidates and hence it will feel very natural to them. This further improves their experience and aligns with CodeScreen’s vision as the real-world developer assessment platform.

The GitHub Actions integration is now available for all our languages/frameworks that support automated unit testing and is included in all our pricing plans at no extra cost!

If you have any questions or feedback, you can either send us an email at hello@codescreen.com or message us via the live chat on our website.

Thanks for reading!

We are very excited to announce that we have now fully integrated the CodeScreen workflow with… was originally published in CodeScreen on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Both May and June have been busy months for us at CodeScreen.

Here is a quick overview of what we released during the past two months:

Terraform Support:

We made our debut in the Dev-Ops arena in May with the release of our first Terraform assessments. Terraform is a widely used infrastructure as code (IAC) software tool, and is becoming an increasingly common requirement in both Developer and dedicated Dev-Ops engineering roles.

We use the excellent Terratest library to run automated tests against the resources that are created when we run & deploy the candidate's Terraform code to our GCP & AWS accounts.

We also support creating custom Terraform tests. Check out our docs here.

Activity Log:

To help track candidates’ journeys through your assessments, we have released a new Activity Log section for each candidate.

This section provides a real-time overview of how a candidate is progressing through your assessment.

The Activity Log now makes it incredibly easy to track where candidates are in your coding test process, a task that is painfully difficult to perform at scale with manual take-home tests.

Video Recordings:

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen a huge increase in the number of companies moving completely to remote working.

As a result, we received a lot of requests from customers looking for a way to assess not just how well a candidate can write code but also how well they can work in a remote environment.

So in June, we released the ability to add a screen-share recording step to CodeScreen tests. This allows candidates to record a quick (1 to 2 minutes) screen share recording explaining their solution (walk-through design decisions they took, data structures they used, etc.).

You will then be able to view the video when reviewing the candidate’s test result.

Instead of reinventing the wheel, we decided to hook into an existing video recording platform called Loom. Loom is a video communication tool, trusted by thousands of companies worldwide. Most importantly, it’s completely free and straightforward & intuitive for candidates to use.

Thanks for reading!

If you have any questions or feedback, you can either:

1. Comment on this article.
2. Ping me a message on LinkedIn.
3. Send me an email at dave@codescreen.com.

Product Updates for May/June was originally published in CodeScreen on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Despite the ongoing pandemic, it’s been business as usual at CodeScreen, and we have been working hard on building out new product features.

Here is a quick overview of what we released during April:

Code Coverage Reports:

We are now including code coverage analysis in the final report we generate for every candidate’s solution.
Code coverage metrics indicate the percentage of the candidate’s solution that is covered by test cases.

We calculate two code coverage metrics:

1. Branch Coverage:
   The percentage of branches of each control structure (such as if and case statements) that have been executed during the test suites run.
2. Line Coverage:
   The percentage of statements that have been executed during the test suites run.

This allows you to quickly see how thoroughly each candidate can test the code that they write, which is a critical skill to have in modern-day software development.

GraphQL Support:

GraphQL has gained significant traction since being released to the public in 2015. It is often presented as a revolutionary new way to think about APIs.

As it’s popularity has increased, so to as the demand for developers with GraphQL experience & knowledge. As a result, there is now an increased need for assessments that test this knowledge.

We have released new GraphQL assessments the follow the same pattern as our existing assessments that involve REST APIs, i.e., query some data from a GraphQL endpoint and calculate some statistics about the returned data:

Going forward, for new assessments we release that involve REST APIs; we will also provide corresponding assessments that use GraphQL APIs.

New React Tests:

We have seen a large number of requests for React assessments in the last few months. While we have supported creating custom React assessments for a while now, we released our first batch of React off the shelf assessments this month.

Unlike more traditional React tests that ask questions such as
“What is a prop?”, our assessments involve the candidate having to modify existing React apps to implement/extend certain functionality.

This type of assessment completely mimics the work the candidate will be doing if they were to come work for you as a React developer.

Interested?

If so, then head over to https://www.codescreen.com to start your 7-day free trial!

If you have any questions or feedback, you can either:

1. Comment on this article.
2. Ping me a message on LinkedIn.
3. Send an email to hello@codescreen.com.

Thanks for your time!

Product Updates for April was originally published in CodeScreen on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

CodeScreen and SmartRecruiters (one of the most popular Applicant Tracking Systems) have today announced a partnership that allows current SmartRecruiters users to use CodeScreen as part of their SmartRecruiters jobs interview plan!

Customers who use CodeScreen as a SmartRecruiters assessment partner are now able to do the following:

• Select which CodeScreen test is required for each role you have on SmartRecruiters.
• Invite candidates to take CodeScreen tests directly from the SmartRecruiters platform as candidates enter the interview stage associated with CodesScreen.
• Status updates from invitation to completion.
• Have candidate CodeScreen test reports automatically attach to their SmartRecruiters candidate profile and their scores displayed.

How does the integration work?

The integration is quick and straightforward. It works as follows:

1. Enable the SmartRecruiters/CodeScreen Integration

To do this, first, let your contact at SmartRecruiters know that you would like to integrate with CodeScreen. They will then send us your SmartRecruiters customer ID, which we will add to your CodeScreen account, and we will notify you that the integration has been enabled.

2. Send CodeScreen test to a candidate

Once the SmartRecruiters/CodeScreen integration is enabled for your organization, you will be able to start sending CodeScreen assessments to candidates via the SmartRecruiters platform.

To do this for an existing candidate, navigate to the candidate, and click Browse beside Skills Tests in the Assessments section in the bottom right of the screen.

You will then see a list of skill test providers, and you can find the available CodeScreen tests by choosing CodeScreen from the filter list.

There will be one entry in this list for each test that you currently have set up on CodeScreen:

Click Select, then click Continue and finally click Send to send the test to the candidate.

When you click Send, CodeScreen sends an email to the candidate containing the instructions for the test.
You can edit the email templates that are used to include your wording and your company’s branding.
You can configure this in the account section of the CodeScreen platform. The default email template looks like the following:

3. Review the Test

Once the candidate has submitted their test, you will be notified via email by SmartRecruiters, and the result will be viewable on the SmartRecruiters’s page for that candidate:

Once you click SEE RESULT, you will be redirected to the result page on the CodeScreen platform:

And that’s it!

A video demo showing the integration in action is available to view here!

Interested?

If so, then head over to https://www.codescreen.com to start your 7-day free trial!

If you have any questions or feedback, you can either:

1. Comment on this article.
2. Ping me a message on LinkedIn.
3. Send an email to hello@codescreen.com.

Thanks for your time!

CodeScreen now integrates with SmartRecruiters! was originally published in CodeScreen on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As we began speaking to more companies, it became clear that while a lot of companies liked our real-world testing approach and workflow, they did not currently have a custom test that they could integrate into our platform.

After receiving more and more requests for off-the-shelf tests to choose from, we began building out a library of real-world assessments that would serve this segment of our market.

After months of hard work, we are today announcing the arrival of CodeScreen Library Tests!

The philosophy behind the design of these tests is that they should match up with a job spec and mimic the type of work the candidate will be doing if they were to be hired.

For example, let’s imagine you are hiring for the following role:

Our Tweets DynamoDB test can then be used to accurately gauge how a candidate would perform in that role:

Each of our tests contains a list of languages/frameworks that the candidate can write their solution in, and a set of skills tested. You can then filter on both of these:

An existing CodeScreen client had this to say about one of our new backend assessments:

“Calling a REST API with authentication and storing the JSON into a class is exactly what a lot of our developers do daily. Also, the questions around the objects are real-life representatives; for example, calculating the time difference between tweets and finding the most popular hashtag.”

CodeScreen Library Tests are now available on all our pricing plans with no extra cost.

We will also be continuously adding to our test library and extending our language & framework coverage!

Interested?

If so, then head over to https://www.codescreen.com to start your 7-day free trial!

If you have any questions or feedback, you can either:

1. Comment on this article.
2. Ping me a message on LinkedIn.
3. Send an email to hello@codescreen.com.

Thanks for your time!

Introducing CodeScreen Library Tests was originally published in CodeScreen on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

CodeScreen and Comeet (one of the most popular Applicant Tracking Systems) have today announced a partnership that allows current Comeet users to use CodeScreen as part of their Comeet jobs interview plan!

Customers who use CodeScreen as a Comeet assessment partner are now able to do the following:

• Select which CodeScreen test is required for each role you have on Comeet.
• Invite candidates to take CodeScreen tests directly from the Comeet platform as candidates enter the interview stage associated with CodesScreen.
• Status updates from invitation to completion.
• Have candidate CodeScreen test reports automatically attach to their Comeet candidate profile and their scores displayed.

How does the integration work?

The integration is quick and straightforward. It works as follows:

1. Enable the Comeet/CodeScreen Integration

To start, head over to the Integrations section on Comeet, find CodeScreen, click Integrate, and copy the API key.
Once you have the API key, go the account section on the CodeScreen platform and copy your API key into the Comeet API Key box and click Save changes.
To complete the integration, click the Activate button in the CodeScreen integration section on Comeet.

2. Add CodeScreen Step to Job

Once the Comeet/CodeScreen integration is enabled for your organisation, you will be able to add the CodeScreen assessment as an Interview step for any of your jobs you have set up on Comeet.

To do this for an existing job, navigate to the job, and click the Workflow tab.

You will then see the list of available choose tests for the jobs that you have previously set up on CodeScreen.

There will be one entry in this list for each test that you currently have on CodeScreen.

3. Send and Review the Test

Once a candidate is moved into the stage that you added the CodeScreen assessment to, you can send them the test by clicking the Start button.

When you click Start, CodeScreen sends an email to the candidate containing the instructions for the test. You can edit the email templates that are used to include your wording and your company’s branding. You can configure this in the account section of the CodeScreen platform. The default email template looks like the following:

Once the candidate has submitted their test, you will be notified via email by Comeet, and the result will be viewable on Comeet.

And that’s it!

A video demo showing the integration in action is available to view here!

Interested?

If so, then head over to https://www.codescreen.com to start your 7-day free trial!

If you have any questions or feedback, you can either:

1. Comment on this article.
2. Ping me a message on LinkedIn.
3. Send an email to hello@codescreen.com.

Thanks for your time!

CodeScreen now integrates with Comeet! was originally published in CodeScreen on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Companies then spend more time unpacking the solution and running it compared to actually reviewing the candidate’s important (non-scaffolding) code. Comparing like for like when reviewing multiple candidate solutions, therefore, becomes very difficult.

We initially attempted to solve this problem by having template repositories on GitHub that companies could follow for each of our supported languages.

The template repositories solved the problem to a certain degree. However, based on the feedback we received from our early users, it was clear that this was still too much of a manual process.

The company needed to clone the template repository (for each language they wanted to allow the candidate to choose from) and update them with their test details.

For full-stack tests, the workflow was even more painful.

We did not support full-stack tests natively. As an alternative, we just provided a single “Generic template” repository, containing only two folders, one for the candidate’s frontend code and one for the backend code.

The “Generic template” was not very helpful at all for full-stack tests. The final submission for a full-stack test from a candidate could be anything from a Rails app, an Angular frontend with a Java backend, a React frontend with a Node.js backend, etc.
Therefore, the problem of unpacking these tests was still very much an issue.

A new, more automated approach:

Today we are launching a new feature on CodeScreen that removes these current problems.

Instead of companies cloning down our template repositories and working from there, they simply add the description of the task and choose which combination of languages & frameworks a candidate can select from before starting the test.

CodeScreen then takes care of all the heavy-lifting by creating the repositories for the company, one for each of the selected combinations, with proper project structures already set up in the repositories.

For example, the user below has selected that the candidate can write their solution to a full-stack test using one of the following:

1. Ruby on Rails.
2. Angular frontend with a Java backend.
3. Angular frontend with a Node.js backend.
4. React frontend with a Java backend.
5. React frontend with a Node.js backend.

A private GitHub repository will be generated for each combination of the above, and the user is given access. In the case above, five repositories are created: Ruby on Rails, Angular & Java, Angular & Node.js, React & Java, and React & Node.js

The task details are automatically added to the README of each repository.

When a candidate then starts the test, they are given the list of options to choose from:

The main advantage of this is that all the scaffolding for each language & framework is created upfront, automatically by CodeScreen.
The amount of work a company has to perform when setting up their custom tests is therefore massively reduced.

Candidates benefit from this too, as it means that when they start a CodeScreen test, the correct project structure is already set up for them in their private repo.

Full-stack tests are also now, by definition, natively supported via these new Template Generators.

We ultimately want to support all mainstream backend languages, frontend frameworks, and full-stack frameworks. We are working currently on adding support for Vue.js, Ember.js, Laravel, Clojure, and Rust.

You can see a video demo of Template Generators in action here.

We are currently brainstorming ways we can extend this approach further. Areas such as the choice of database used and even what cloud provider the backend code runs in (AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Run, K8s, etc.) are all in the pipeline!

Interested?

If so, then head over to https://www.codescreen.com to start your 7-day free trial!

If you have any questions or feedback, you can either:

1. Comment on this article.
2. Ping me a message on LinkedIn.
3. Send an email to hello@codescreen.com.

Thanks for your time!

Introducing Template Generators was originally published in CodeScreen on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This is because understanding and acting on feedback is a fundamental part of a developer’s workflow when writing code in a collaborative environment as part of a team.

The typical workflow in a real-world environment will look something like the following:

1. Developer writes some code and pushes their changes to a separate branch in a GitHub repository.
2. A pull request (i.e. a request for merging the developer’s code into the main (master) branch) is then created and a colleague is assigned to review the changes.
3. The reviewer may have comments on how the code can be improved etc which they will leave on the review for the author to address.
4. Once the reviewer is happy that their comments have been addressed, the code is merged into the main branch.

Today we are announcing a new feature on CodeScreen which allows companies to assess how a candidate reacts to feedback on their solution for a CodeScreen test.

How it works:

Once the candidate has submitted their solution for a test, you can review the private GitHub repo that was created for them to complete the test and make comments on their code from the commit view.

Once you have added your comments, you can then head over to the Result section for that candidate and click the Send feedback button.

The candidate is then notified via email and their access to the private GitHub repo is added back so they can address the comments and push their changes.

A more natural candidate experience:

Another advantage of this approach is that it is much more natural for a candidate to act on feedback in this way compared to live code pairing sessions or whiteboard challenges.

Live code pair sessions and whiteboard challenges occur in a highly contrived setting where the candidate is expected to answer a question on the spot.

However, this is not what happens in the real world. The candidate will usually have some time to process the feedback and gather their thoughts and then address the comments.
This is what CodeScreen now allows to be replicated completely by integrating pull request style workflows into each CodeScreen test, which aligns to one of CodeScreen’s central themes of allowing the candidate to give their best showing in the test.

Interested?

If so, then head over to https://www.codescreen.com to start your 7-day free trial!

If you have any questions or feedback, you can either:

1. Comment on this article.
2. Ping me a message on LinkedIn.
3. Send an email to hello@codescreen.com.

Thanks for your time!

Emulating pull request workflows in CodeScreen was originally published in CodeScreen on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

CodeScreen and Workable (one of the most popular Applicant Tracking Systems) have today announced a partnership that allows current Workable users to use CodeScreen as a standalone screening tool as part of their Workable jobs interview plan!

Customers who use CodeScreen as a Workable assessment partner are now able to do the following:

• Select which CodeScreen test is required for each role you have on Workable.
• Invite candidates to take CodeScreen tests directly from the Workable platform as candidates enter the assessment stage.
• Status updates from invitation to completion.
• Have candidate CodeScreen test reports automatically attach to their Workable candidate profile and their scores displayed.

How does the integration work?

The integration is quick and straightforward. It works as follows:

1. Enable the Workable/CodeScreen Integration

To start, head over to the account section on the CodeScreen platform to view your Workable API key. Once you have your API key, go to the Integrations section on Workable, find CodeScreen in the Assessment Providers section, and enter the API key.

2. Add CodeScreen Stage to Job’s Interview Plan

Once the Workable/CodeScreen integration is enabled for your organisation, you will be able to add a CodeScreen assessment to any of your Workable job’s workflow.

To do this for an existing job, navigate to a job, and click into the “Workflow” section, and click the “Add Assessment test” button.

Now select CodeScreen, and choose from your list of available tests.

There will be one entry in this list for each test that you currently have on CodeScreen.

3. Send and Review the Test

Once a candidate is moved into the stage of the pipeline that you added the CodeScreen assessment to, you can send them the test by clicking the Send test button.

When you click Send Test, CodeScreen sends an email to the candidate containing the instructions for the test. You can edit the email templates that are used to include your wording and your company’s branding. You can configure this in the account section of the CodeScreen platform. The default email template looks like the following:

Once the candidate has submitted their test, you will be notified via email by Workable, and the result will be viewable on Workable.

After you click on “View report on CodeScreen”, you’ll be taken to a page similar to the following:

And that’s it!

Also, here is a quick video showing the integration in action.

Interested?

If so, then head over to https://www.codescreen.com to start your 7-day free trial!

If you have any questions or feedback, you can either:

1. Comment on this article.
2. Ping me a message on LinkedIn.
3. Send an email to hello@codescreen.com.

Thanks for your time!

CodeScreen + Workable is now live! was originally published in CodeScreen on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

CodeScreen and Greenhouse (one of the most popular Applicant Tracking Systems) have announced a partnership that allows current Greenhouse users to use CodeScreen as part of their Greenhouse jobs interview plan!

Customers who use CodeScreen as a Greenhouse assessment partner are now able to do the following:

• Select which CodeScreen test is required for each role you have on Greenhouse.
• Invite candidates to take CodeScreen tests directly from the Greenhouse platform as candidates enter the assessment stage.
• Status updates from invitation to completion.
• Have candidate CodeScreen test reports automatically attach to their Greenhouse candidate profile and their scores displayed.

How does the integration work?

The integration is quick and straightforward. It works as follows:

1. Enable the Greenhouse/CodeScreen Integration

To start, head over to the account section on the CodeScreen platform to view your Greenhouse API key. Once you have your API key, click here to open a ticket with Greenhouse.

Do not send the API key in this initial email.

The Greenhouse Support Team will respond with a SendSafely link for you to enter your API key. A notification will be sent to the Greenhouse Support Team after you have entered your API key and they will email you to confirm that your API key has been set up in your account and your integration is enabled.

2. Add CodeScreen Stage to Job’s Interview Plan

Once the Greenhouse/CodeScreen integration is enabled for your organisation, you will be able to add the CodeScreen assessment as an Interview stage.

To do this for an existing job, navigate to a job (All Jobs>Job Name) and click Job Setup from the Job navigation bar.

From the Job Setup page, navigate to Interview Plan on the left-hand panel. Scroll down the page and click + Add a Stage.

From the Add Stage dialog box, select the CodeScreen stage. When finished, click Add to apply the stage to the job’s interview plan.

3. Configure CodeScreen Stage

Once the stage has been added to the job’s interview plan, click Edit Take Home Test.
Use the provided drop-down menu to choose which test you want to add to this job’s interview plan.
There will be one entry in this drop-down list for each test that you currently have on CodeScreen.

Select the appropriate test and assign at least one Greenhouse user to grade/review submitted assessments. When finished, click Save.

4. Send and Review the Test

When candidates are moved into the CodeScreen interview stage, Greenhouse will display a Send Test link.

When you click Send Test, CodeScreen sends an email containing the instructions for the test. You are able to edit the email templates that are used to include your own wording and your company’s branding. You can configure this in the account section on the CodeScreen platform. The default email template looks like the following:

The status of the assessment will be viewable in Greenhouse:

Once the candidate has submitted their test, you will be notified via email by Greenhouse and the Interview Kit will contain a link to view the submitted test on CodeScreen.

After you click on the Interview Kit on the candidate’s profile, you’ll be taken to a page where the URL is available to view the test result on CodeScreen. You can get this URL by clicking View Report, which will bring you to a page similar to the following:

And that’s it!

A video demo showing the integration in action is available to view here!

Interested?

If so, then head over to www.codescreen.com to start your 7-day free trial!

If you have any questions or feedback, you can either:

1. Comment on this article.
2. Ping me a message on LinkedIn.
3. Send an email to hello@codescreen.com.

Thanks for your time!

CodeScreen + Greenhouse…you got it! was originally published in CodeScreen on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.