Today, we’re excited to announce the launch of HackerRank certifications, a library of certification tests designed to help job seekers showcase their technical skills to potential employers. These certifications are designed to help job seekers highlight their abilities in high demand skills, like Problem Solving, Python, JavaScript, React, and more.
At HackerRank, we believe in valuing skills over pedigree. It means we believe that hiring decisions should be made based on job seekers’ proven skills, not their educational background, their job history, or other biasing influences.
But in the modern technical job landscape, antiquated hiring tactics are all too common. Too many employers rely on blunt proxies like resumes, GPAs, and more to assess developer skills at a glance. To make it easy for job seekers to stand out based on skills—not background—we’re introducing HackerRank Skills Certification Tests.
How HackerRank skills certification works
HackerRank skills certifications are a set of free certification tests open to all developers. Designed to help you grow your career, HackerRank skills certifications are a recognizable way to showcase your technical knowledge to your network, your peers, and potential employers.
Each skills certification assesses abilities in key skills from the HackerRank Skills Directory. The certification tests themselves are standardized assessments, designed to reflect the key competencies employers expect in each respective technical skill. We drew on insights from hiring assessments from our 2,000+ corporate partners to create tests that closely match the expectations employers have for each skill.
Getting started with HackerRank skills certifications
To get HackerRank certified, all you need is a HackerRank for Developers account. From the HackerRank platform, you can use HackerRank challenges to practice your skills—and learn new ones.
Once you’re ready, you can take a certification test directly on the platform. Each test takes 90 minutes or less to complete. If you pass the test, you’ll earn a certificate in that skill. If you don’t, we’ll keep your test scores private. You can keep practicing on HackerRank and retake the test later.
Currently, HackerRank offers six distinct technical skills certifications. Certifications range from more universal technical skills like problem solving, down to more specialized skills like Java or Python. Here’s what each entails:
- Problem Solving (Basic): Functions, currying, hoisting, scope, inheritance, events and error handling
- React (Basic): Basic routing, rendering elements, state management (internal component state), handling events, ES6, JavaScript, and form validation
- JavaScript (Basic): Functions, currying, hoisting, scope, inheritance, events, and error handling
- Python (Basic): Scalar types, operators and control flow, strings, collections and iteration, modularity, objects, and types and classes
- Java (Basic): Classes, data structures, inheritance, exception handling (Java 7 or Java 8)
- Problem Solving (Intermediate): Data Structures (e.g. HashMaps, stacks and queues) and algorithms (e.g. optimal solutions).
We’ll be working to add additional certifications for skills in the HackerRank Skills Directory moving forward.
Using certifications in your job search
HackerRank skills certifications are designed to help you advance your career and your job search. Once you earn a certificate, you can add it directly to your LinkedIn profile. As the industry leader in developer assessments, HackerRank’s skills certifications are industry-recognized, helping your LinkedIn profile stand out to recruiters looking for developer talent.
HackerRank certifications are also a great way to prepare for technical interviews. Each skill certification tests for relevant key competencies that employers expect from top candidates. Completing relevant certifications is an easy way to do a skills check before interviewing. Since the test focuses on topics that employers tend to assess for, it’s a great way to independently prep for an in-depth technical interview.
Certify your technical skills
HackerRank skills certifications can help advance your career by showcasing technical skills to your peers, your network, and potential employers. Ready to get your technical skills certified? Sign up or log into HackerRank for Developers to take a certification test.
Kalyani Nimbalkar is a product manager at HackerRank. Leading efforts behind the HackerRank for Developers platform, Kalyani and her team are committed to helping developers put their best foot forward in technical interviews. She draws on her background in analytics to create better experiences for the 11M+ developers and job seekers on the HackerRank platform.