Over the past five years, the demand for DevOps engineers has soared by approximately 40-45%. As more organizations invest in digital transformation initiatives, this trend should continue.
However, a shortage of DevOps engineers and other IT professionals poses a major barrier to adopting new technologies. According to a Gartner survey, 64% of IT executives view a lack of access to talent as the biggest hurdle that they will face during their digital transformation efforts.
If your organization has been searching for skilled DevOps engineers, you know how real the talent shortage has become. To successfully navigate this thinning pool of talent and connect with top DevOps engineers, you must modernize your hiring practices.
While there are many ways to hire smarter, one of the most effective is by incorporating DevOps engineer skills tests into your screening strategy.
What Is a DevOps Engineer Skills Test?
A DevOps skill test is what it sounds like. It is an expertly crafted screening tool designed to measure an applicant’s DevOps skills. There are several different DevOps skills tests geared to screening candidates for specific roles.
In the past, HR teams administered skills tests in person. While this approach effectively gathered insights about each candidate, scheduling screening sessions could be tedious. Hiring teams had to select a testing time that worked for both candidates and proctors. In addition, in-person skills testing requires businesses to invest in costly testing supplies like workbooks and exam papers.
Fortunately, your team can administer modern DevOps skills tests remotely. When a candidate applies for a position, your HR personnel can use email to send them a test invite link.
The applicants log in to the testing platform within the specified time frame and complete the assigned skills tests. Once they submit the results, your HR staff can review their performance and move on with the screening process.
What DevOps Skill Tests Are Available?
The DevOps sector is extremely complex. As such, DevOps engineers need to possess a broad range of skills. Each company uses a unique combination of frameworks, coding languages, and project management methodologies, making screening DevOps professionals even more complicated.
To meet the needs of a wide array of companies, eSkill has crafted dozens of DevOps engineer skills tests. Some of the most notable include Amazon Web Services Cloud Computing Basics, Agile Management, and Python 2.6.
The exact content of each skills test will vary. However, most of them have 40 questions. Commonly used question formats include multiple-choice, select-all-that-apply, and true/false.
You can incorporate multiple skills tests into your DevOps engineer screening protocols. Alternatively, you can create a custom skills test using the pool of available questions. All questions were written and vetted by subject matter experts. This expert oversight ensures the questions’ reliability as a gauge of individual skill.
How DevOps Engineer Skills Tests Improve Hiring
Skills testing can significantly improve your hiring capabilities in several ways. DevOps engineer skills tests bring a distinct advantage over traditional screening protocols by providing hard data on applicants’ abilities. This hard data means that candidates cannot exaggerate their experience or knowledge, as a skills test will reveal the true depth of their expertise.
In addition to providing your hiring team with actionable intelligence, skills tests can expedite the screening process. Instead of wasting weeks reviewing resumes and arranging interviews, your staff can send skills test invitations as soon as they receive applications from candidates. They can use skills test results to remove unsuitable candidates from the applicant pool and identify the most talented individuals.
Appropriate skills testing can protect your organization from civil liability as an added benefit. Allegations of unfair hiring practices and the lawsuits that typically follow these claims can ruin your company’s reputation. If you lose a civil lawsuit, your organization may be required to pay tens of thousands of dollars in fines and legal fees.
Skills tests reduce this risk by controlling for bias in the hiring process. Your staff can administer skills tests before ever meeting or interviewing a candidate. They can then use quantifiable performance data to support hiring decisions instead of subjective interviews. Your organization can retain applicant screening data for months or years to guard against future legal action.
Where to Find DevOps Skill Tests
Generally, creating your own skills test in-house is not recommended. While skills tests should control hiring bias, proper vetting of test questions is essential. Otherwise, skills tests may inadvertently discriminate against a particular demographic. In addition, creating skills tests can be a time-consuming and expensive undertaking. Search eSkill’s massive skills test library to see the range of IT skills tests available from which to choose instead.
Do you want to avoid the problems associated with creating DevOps engineer skill tests? Request a demo to learn how eSkill makes it easy.