In a few of our recent webinars, we’ve been polling attendees to understand where their sentiments lie regarding AI. And we’ve found some interesting results.
AI for me
Strong majorities embrace using AI to increase their hiring teams’ productivity. In a June webinar, 84% agreed, and 41% strongly agreed.
In a customer webinar hosted in July, 74% agreed.
Overall, we see a clear openness to using AI to help hiring teams be more productive.
What does that mean? In the context of the webinar, it means using AI to take on some more time-consuming tasks, such as analyzing the quality of a candidate’s code or producing a draft interview summary. Viewed through that lens, a little AI help sounds pretty nice.
Want to hear more about how we see AI powering the next generation of technical interviews? Be sure to check out our on-demand webinar: How HackerRank is Leading AI-Powered Hiring.
But not for thee…
The second question we’ve been asking is whether candidates should be able to use AI tools during coding tests.
Hiring teams using AI to be more productive? Totally cool.
Candidates using AI during coding tests? Hold on just a minute.
In our How HackerRank is Leading AI-Powered Hiring webinar, we found sentiment evenly divided. 39% of attendees agreed candidates should be able to use AI tools, and 43% disagreed, with 19% on the fence.
This tracks with the many conversations we’ve been having over the past several months. Cases can be made both for and against AI use in assessments. If AI can do the work for someone, how can the hiring team be sure the candidate actually has the skills for the job? Isn’t evaluating those skills the entire point of a coding test?
On the other hand, if a hire is going to be working with AI on the job, wouldn’t allowing them to work with AI in the test environment provide a more real-world assessment of their skills?
In a July customer webinar, responses were decidedly more one-sided. Only 19% of attendees favored candidates using AI tools, and 70% opposed. We also noted a steep jump in those strongly opposing candidate AI use: 32% compared to just 14% in the earlier poll.
Embrace AI on your own terms
We don’t expect the question of AI’s role in assessments to be settled any time soon, if ever. What works for one company, or even one role, may not work for another. It’s why we’re designing our AI enhancements to be flexible and customizable, rather than trying to force fit a one size fits all approach.
If you want to learn more about what we’re building, visit HackerRank AI to get the rundown and join the waitlist. And if you want the full story, as told by our AI experts, watch the on-demand webinar, How HackerRank is Leading AI-Powered Hiring.
Where do you stand? Should candidates be able to use AI tools in coding tests? Why or why not?
