Skip to main content
↑

Understanding the HackerRank Interview Interface

  • Updated
Hide
In this article

Overview

HackerRank Interview is a live online interview platform for hiring companies to conduct coding interviews. The company's hiring managers invite candidates to participate in a HackerRank live coding interview session. HackerRank Interview enables both the interviewer(s) and a Candidate to communicate, code, and collaborate interactively.

Suppose you are a Candidate who has an upcoming interview on HackerRank Interview. In that case, this article explains how you can log in to the Interview and walks you through HackerRank Interview's coding interface. Additionally, you can refer to the Interview preparation checklist for Candidates for more information.

Candidate Login

  • Open your recruiter's email invite to the HackerRank Interview, and click the interview link. We recommend you to use Firefox or Google Chrome browsers for the best experience.
  • In the Join As Candidate section of the login page, specify your name and click Join.
  • Note: You may also be asked to accept the cookie policy. (As seen in the screenshot below)

Candidate_login_and_coookie_policy.png

  • After clicking on Join, you will be moved to HackerRank's Lobby, where you will wait until the interviewer Admit's you into the Interview.

HR_Lobby.PNG

  • Once the interviewer admits, you can see the Interviews screen as shown below.

HackerRank_Interview_Main_page_New.JPG

Tip: Click the gear icon (located in the upper right of the screenshot above) and select Take a quick tour to get automatic guidance of the HackerRank Interview interface.

HackerRank Interview Interface

The interface has a built-in code editor that supports various programming languages. The live video-chat option allows you to engage and interact with your interviewers using chat, video, and call options. Task_Description.JPG

Note: The chat window and audio and video calls are supported by Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, and Microsoft Edge browsers. 

Tip: You can move the chat window wherever you want on the Interview screen.Moving_Chat_window.PNG

Your interviewer posts different questions to you during the Interview, and each question is displayed in a separate Question tab. (Upper left of the screenshot below) When you are viewing a particular Question tab, click the Task Description pane on the left to view the complete problem statement. You must read and comprehend the problem statement carefully before answering the question.

The Languages option lists the programming languages permitted by your test setter to answer a particular question. Typically, based on the specific skills the company wants to assess in a Candidate. The test setter determines the languages which will be available for coding. You must choose from the available programming languages to code your solution, and Interview's code editor automatically switches and adapts itself to the chosen language.

skills.jpg

The lower half of the code editor displays the sample input values, compilation status, and output from your code.

The Input tab displays the input values from the Sample Test cases if they are defined in the Question. Sample input values may be included in a coding Question to help you understand the type of input passed by the test cases to your code and the expected output values from your solution. To test your code, click "Run Code". The output produced by your solution or any compilation errors and warning messages is displayed in the Output area. 

input.JPG

Click the "Run all test cases" option to execute all the test cases covering edge scenarios for the solution. The output is shown in the Output tab, as shown below.

output.jpg

In a few cases, you can see the Console tab. This interactive console (REPL) executes the code of REPL enabled languages Python, JavaScript, and Ruby by taking real-time input.Console.png

Click the gear icon on the top-right corner of the page to customize the appearance of the Interview screen and change code editing options.

themes.jpg

Customizing the Interview Editor Settings

Option Description
Editor Appearance Settings
  1. Editor Theme  - By default, the Interviews editor has a Dark background appearance. You can also change it to an alternative Light background appearance.
  2. Editor Mode - In the beginning, it is set in Default editor mode. You can also change it to use the Emacs or Vim editors.
  3. Font Size - You can adjust the editor's display of font to sizes Small, Medium, or Large to suit your requirements during the Interview. 
  4. Tab Size: By default, the tab size is set in Normal. You can change it to either short or big as per your preference. 
Code editing settings
  1. Code Auto-complete - By default, auto-complete is enabled and helps you to speed up your coding process during the Interview. While coding, the editor automatically provides programming language-specific syntax suggestions, which you can quickly adapt to write code. It also hints at syntax errors in your code. This feature is available for the C, C++, Java, Python, PHP, and Ruby programming languages.
  2. Automatic Brace Completion - By default, this option is turned on, and the editor automatically adjusts parenthesis in your programs.
  3. Chat Notifications - By default, during the Interview you are notified about any messages you receive in the Interview chat window. You can turn off notifications if required.
  4. Keyboard Shortcuts - By default, you can use the keyboard shortcuts across the editor for various operations. You can turn off this option if required.

 

 

Related articles