This is a brief guide to using TestDome, from signing up, to setting up a test, and inviting candidates to the test.
Note: This guide shows images for the old version of the app. The new version has a built-in onboarding tutorial which you can access from your account's personal settings.
Creating an Account
Sign-up for a free account. You will automatically have a free 14-day trial when you sign-up, but you are not obligated to purchase anything after the trial ends, and you don't need to enter any payment data.
Setting up a Test
You can use one of our premade tests, or create your own test.
To use a premade test, go to the Tests page and select the test you'd like to use. You can scroll down to see the questions that are on the test. The questions are randomly selected from our library. If you'd like a different set of questions, you can click the button that says "Another random set of questions". Once you're happy with the questions, click the green button that says "Use this test for screening".
This will add the test to your account, and you can see it on the My Tests page. Even though it's a premade test, it's still fully customizable so you can change anything you need to as described in the following steps, including manually adding or removing questions.
To create your own test, go to My Tests and click on the "new empty test" button.
This will create a blank test (named "Custom test" by default) which you can now customize. You should see 3 tabs: Test settings, Questions, and Candidates.
The Test Settings tab is where you can enter a name for the test, add an optional description, choose a timing policy, and decide if you want to show candidates the final score or not.
The Questions tab is where you can add questions to your test. Just click on the green button that says "Add question to the test".
This will open up the question library where you can filter questions based on skills and question sets.
You can click on the question title to see more details about the question. Clicking on the Type, Difficulty, or Expected time columns will sort the questions by that column. To add a question to your test, click on the blue "Add" button on the right side. When you're done adding questions, click on the "Back to test" button in the top left to return to the test. The questions will now be listed in the order you added them, but you can also reorder the questions by clicking to the left of the question number and dragging your mouse up or down.
Once you've added a question to your test, you can change the default time limit by clicking on it and setting a new time limit.
You can also change the number of points each question gives.
Once your done setting up the questions, you can preview your test by clicking on the "Preview this test" button in the bottom right. This will allow you to take the test from a candidate's perspective and see how everything works.
The Candidates tab is where you can invite new candidates, and see the results of candidates that have taken the test. You can also set a passing score here, and candidates will automatically be placed into Pass or Fail categories based on their score.
Inviting Candidates
Note that after you invite at least 1 candidate, you can no longer make changes to the Test Settings or Questions. This is to ensure that all candidates get the same test so you can objecively compare their performance.
To invite new candidates, go to the Candidates tab of the test you'd like to invite them to, and click on the green button that says "Invite candidates".
There are 2 other ways you can invite candidates. You can go to the My Tests page and click on the small icon in the Candidates column to invite candidates to that test.
You can also invite new candidates from the My Candidates page. Just click on the button that says "Invite New Candidates" and select a test you'd like to invite them to from the dropdown menu.
All of the options will take you to an "Invite New Candidates" page where you'll see 2 tabs: "Invite via Email", and "Invite via URL".
Invite via Email
Enter the emails of the candidates you need to invite to the test. Enable webcam proctoring (optional), and then set the deadline until which candidates need to take the test (1-10 days). Below that you can customize the email body and the reply-to address.
When you are ready, click on the "Invite candidates" button. You will use an invite each time you invite a candidate to the test. If the candidate does not take the test by the time the deadline expires, their invite will be automatically returned to you. You can also manually cancel the invite (from the Candidates tab) any time before the candidate starts the test and it will be returned to you.
Invite via URL
Set the Candidates limit to the number of candidates that need to take the test (or higher). This number will decrease by 1 every time a candidate clicks on the URL to start the test. When the number reaches zero all URLs for this test will automatically turn off. Enable email verification or webcam proctoring if you need to (both are optional) and then click the "Save settings" button. Enter a label of your choice for the URL and click the "Generate new URL" button. You can generate multiple URLs, but the candidate limit number you set applies to the whole test, not to each URL individually. Copy/paste the URL to your job ad (or anywhere else you'd like) and candidates can start the test whenever they have time.
You're done for now! After candidates finish their tests, you'll be able to view their results in the Candidates tab of the test.
If you need to re-invite a candidate to the same test for any reason, you can do so for free. You won't use another invite as long as the same candidate email is used for the test.
Test Results
After candidates finish their tests, their results will be available in the Candidates tab of the test. Candidates are sorted into one of 4 categories:
- Pass: Candidates that passed the test
- Fail: Candidates that failed the test
- Waiting: Candidates that have been invited but have not taken the test yet
- Cancelled: Candidates whose test invite has been cancelled
Clicking on a candidate will take you to their detailed results, where you can see their answers and compare them to the official solution. For coding questions, you also can see a candidate's answers by timestamps to see which solutions they tried before submitting their final answer.
Cloning, Archiving, and Deleting a Test
In the bottom right of the Test Settings tab, you can see 3 buttons: "Clone", "Archive", and "Delete".
Cloning a test creates an exact copy of the test, with the same settings and questions. If a question has a newer version, it will be automatically updated to the latest version when you clone the test. Cloning a test also allows you to make changes to it before inviting new candidates.
Archiving a test will move it to the archive, so that it doesn't show up in your list of tests on the My Tests page. You can do this for old tests that you no longer use. If have at least 1 archived test, you'll see a button that says "View X archived" below your list of tests on the My Tests page. This will take you to the archive and you can still view the test and candidate results if you need to.
Deleting a test will completely remove it from your account. Please note that deleting a test will also permanently delete all candidate results associated with the test, so we don't recommend doing this unless you're 100% sure you do not need any data from the test anymore.