Assessment
Technical Assessment
What a technical assessment is, the five common formats (coding test, take-home, debugging, system design, work sample), sample tasks and a scoring rubric.
The short answer
A technical assessment for hiring typically runs 30-60 minutes, coding challenge, debugging task, take-home exercise, system design discussion and work sample, at 3 difficulty levels. Give it after the first screen and before interviews, and score it on the areas below, fixed before you see any answers, so every candidate is judged the same way.
- Ability to solve a realistic problem from the role, not a puzzle unrelated to the work
- Reading, debugging and changing code or configuration someone else wrote
- Choice of approach and the trade-offs the candidate can explain
- Correctness, including edge cases and failure handling
Cohesyve tests Technical inside an AI job simulation of the role, after finding and contacting candidates. Ten candidates free, no card.
About to take a Technical test? Practise it free →A technical assessment is a structured test of the job-specific technical skills a role needs, taken before or alongside interviews. For engineers that usually means a coding test or a debugging task; for data roles, SQL and analysis; for IT and support roles, troubleshooting a realistic fault. The best technical assessments copy a slice of the real job, are scored against a rubric agreed before anyone sees an answer, and take less than an hour at the screening stage. This page covers the main formats, what each one tells you, sample tasks by level and the red flags to watch for.
Format
What it measures
- Ability to solve a realistic problem from the role, not a puzzle unrelated to the work
- Reading, debugging and changing code or configuration someone else wrote
- Choice of approach and the trade-offs the candidate can explain
- Correctness, including edge cases and failure handling
- Clarity of the code, query or write-up a teammate would have to maintain
- How the candidate communicates assumptions and asks for missing information
Cohesyve
Test Technical on the real work
Cohesyve builds an AI job simulation from your job description that covers Technical as the role uses it, finds and contacts candidates, and returns a ranked shortlist. Ten candidates free, no card.
Who takes it
Topics covered
Coding
- Writing a small function to a specification
- Data structure choice
- Handling invalid input
- Writing a test for their own code
Debugging and reading code
- Finding the bug in a failing function
- Explaining what unfamiliar code does
- Reading a stack trace or log
- Spotting a performance problem
Data and systems
- Writing a SQL query against a given schema
- Diagnosing a slow endpoint
- Configuring a service or pipeline step
- Reasoning about failure and retries
Design and communication
- Sketching a design for a feature
- Explaining trade-offs
- Estimating effort and risk
- Writing a short pull-request description
Sample questions
This function should return the three most frequent words in a text, but it returns the wrong answer for the test input. Find and fix the bug.
JuniorLook for Reproduces the failure first, finds the root cause (case handling, punctuation or tie-breaking) rather than patching the symptom, and adds a test that would have caught it.
Write a function that validates a list of user sign-ups and returns the valid ones plus a list of reasons for each rejection.
JuniorLook for Clear separation of validation rules, no silent failures, sensible handling of empty and malformed input, and readable names.
An endpoint that lists a customer's orders has become slow as the table grew. Here is the code and the query. What would you check, in what order?
Mid-levelLook for Measures before changing anything, looks for an N+1 pattern or a missing index, considers pagination, and says how they would confirm the fix.
A nightly job sometimes processes the same file twice when it retries. How would you make it safe to retry?
Mid-levelLook for Idempotency: a processed-file record or unique key, transactional writes, and thought about what happens if the job dies half way.
Design a feature that lets customers export their data as a file of up to several gigabytes. Talk through the main components and what could go wrong.
SeniorLook for Asynchronous job, storage and expiry of the file, progress and failure reporting, access control on the download, and a sense of which parts to build first.
Red flags
- Starts writing code before understanding what the task asks
- Cannot explain why their solution works, or walk through it when asked a follow-up
- Ignores edge cases and failure paths entirely
- Fixes a symptom without finding the cause
- Over-engineers a small task to show off patterns
- Treats unclear requirements as permission to guess rather than to ask
Scoring rubric
| Criterion | Weight | What strong looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Correctness | 30% | Works on the given cases and on the edge cases the candidate identified. |
| Problem-solving approach | 25% | Understands the problem, picks a sensible approach and can defend it. |
| Code and design quality | 20% | Readable, well structured, easy for a teammate to change. |
| Debugging and testing | 15% | Reproduces, isolates and verifies; writes a test that matters. |
| Communication | 10% | States assumptions, explains trade-offs plainly, asks good questions. |
Why it is used
For employers
- See real technical skill before senior engineers spend interview hours
- Compare applicants on the same task and the same rubric
- Catch the gap between a strong CV and weak hands-on ability early
- Give interviewers a concrete piece of work to discuss in the next round
For candidates
- Show what you can do rather than relying on job titles and keywords
- Get a realistic preview of the work the team actually does
- A short, scoped task respects your time more than an open-ended take-home
- Strong work on the task can outweigh a non-traditional background
Common questions
What is a technical assessment?
A technical assessment is a test of the hands-on skills a technical job needs, such as writing code, querying data or troubleshooting a system. Employers use it to check skills before or alongside interviews, and the best ones copy real tasks from the role.
What happens in a technical assessment?
Usually one of five formats: a timed coding challenge, a debugging task on existing code, a take-home exercise, a live system design discussion or a work sample from the job. You solve the task and are scored on correctness, approach, code quality and how you explain your choices.
How long should a technical assessment take?
At the screening stage, 30 to 60 minutes is enough for one or two focused tasks. Keep take-homes short and scoped; long unpaid projects put off strong candidates who already have jobs.
Is a technical assessment the same as a coding test?
A coding test is one kind of technical assessment. Technical assessments also cover debugging, SQL and data tasks, configuration, system design and troubleshooting, depending on the role.
Can Cohesyve run technical assessments?
Yes. Cohesyve builds a job simulation from your job description, so the technical tasks reflect the role you are hiring for, and returns a ranked shortlist so interview time goes to the strongest applicants.
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