Optimality Evaluation enables hiring teams to assess whether a candidate’s solution aligns with the expected time and space complexity. It enables you to distinguish between brute-force and optimized approaches.

This feature evaluates the performance and scalability of candidate code, aligning test evaluations closer to real-world engineering expectations.

How it works

When you enable Advanced Evaluation at the company level, Optimality Evaluation automatically applies to supported Coding questions. The system analyzes the candidate’s solution to determine its time and space complexity.

Set up Optimality Evaluation

To set up Optimality Evaluation:

1. Enable Advanced Evaluation. For more information, see Enable Advanced Evaluation.

2. Use a Coding question. Optimality Evaluation supports only the Coding question type.

3. For custom questions, add the following in the Interview Guidelines section:

   

   • Time complexity: insert expected complexity

   • Space complexity: insert expected complexity

   Note: HackerRank Library questions already include this configuration by default.

Once configured, Optimality Evaluation automatically applies to the question when used in a test with Advanced Evaluation enabled.

View Optimality insights in reports

Optimality insights appear in candidate test reports.

To view Optimality insights:

1. Log in to your HackerRank for Work account using your credentials.

2. Go to the Tests tab.

3. Open the test you want to review.

4. Go to the Candidates tab.

5. Click a candidate's name to open the Summary Report.
   The Summary Report shows an Optimality column for each Coding question.

   

6. Scroll to the relevant Coding question and then click it to open the Detailed Report.
   The Detailed Report includes an Optimality section for each coding question under the Candidate Evaluation tab, with an explanation of the time and space complexities.

   

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)