For HR, hiring managers and team leads
Hire and onboard IT people on real machines.
A CV says what someone has seen. A lab shows what they can do. Test candidates on a real server before the interview, then give every new hire a 30-day plan of hands-on labs, checked automatically.
- No account for candidates
- Real Ubuntu servers
- Automatic checks, human decision
Know who can do the job before the interview
Send each candidate a private link. They get a real server with a ticket queue or a broken website, and a timer. You get a score per task and every command they typed.
- Ready-made tests: Linux admin, web troubleshooting, Bash and Git
- Or your own lab, on your own stack
- A report you can print and share with the hiring manager
Get new hires productive faster
Pick a role and a start date. The new hire gets a week-by-week plan of real labs on their dashboard; you see who is on track and who is stuck.
- Plans for sysadmin, DevOps, support and backend roles
- Due dates, reminders and progress in your team reports
- Your own labs can be added to any plan
How it works
How a hiring assessment works
01Pick a test
A ready-made assessment or one of your labs. Set the time limit and the pass mark.
02Send the link
Paste names and emails. Each candidate gets a private link: no account, nothing to install.
03They work on a real server
A timer, the instructions, a real terminal. They can check their work as they go.
04You read the report and decide
Score per task, commands typed, pastes, time spent. Advance, hold or reject, with your note.
The tests
Three tests ready to send
Built like real tickets and incidents, with partial credit. Shortcuts don't pass: the script is also run on a file the candidate never sees, a log must be emptied while the application keeps it open, the main branch must not be rewritten.
Linux administrator screening
- Accounts and limited sudo
- A shared folder with the right permissions
- A runaway process
- A log filling the disk
- An unknown open port
Web server troubleshooting
- Nginx configuration error
- A port taken by another program
- File permissions (403)
- A dead application behind the proxy (502)
- A short incident note
Bash scripting and Git
- A command with arguments and exit codes
- Text processing on any log
- A branch from main
- git revert without rewriting history
- An annotated release tag
The report
A report that supports a human decision
Score per task
Each task is pass or fail on the candidate's own machine, with the same checks for everyone.
What they did
Every command typed and every paste, with the time. Pastes and tab changes are shown, never judged for you.
Your decision, recorded
Advance, hold or reject, with a note and your name. Nothing is rejected automatically.
Print or export
A clean PDF for the hiring manager, a CSV of all candidates for your ATS.
Fair to candidates, simple for your DPO
- No AI scoring: the checks are written by people and the same for every candidate.
- Before starting, the candidate reads what is recorded and why, and for how long.
- No webcam, no microphone, no screen recording: only what happens on the lab machine.
- Candidates never become users of your organization and take no seat.
- Their personal data is erased automatically after your retention period, or on request.
Onboarding
A first 30 days for each technical role
Google's SRE teams write that new hires usually need three to nine months before they are ready for on-call, and that hands-on labs help them get there with less mentor time. LabXenon gives every new hire that practice from week one.
Linux system administrator
- Week 1Command line and file system
- Week 2Users, sudo and processes
- Week 3Logs and backups
- Week 4Automation and networking
DevOps engineer
- Week 1Linux and Git
- Week 2Scripting and networking
- Week 3Web servers and reverse proxies
- Week 4TLS and automation
Support and operations engineer
- Week 1Finding your way on a server
- Week 2Reading logs
- Week 3Proxies and certificates
- Week 4The database
Backend or data developer
- Week 1The shell
- Week 2Git
- Week 3Scripting
- Week 4The database
Why a lab, and why a conversation after it
In the latest re-analysis of hiring research (Sackett et al., 2022), work samples predict job performance well (.33), structured interviews best (.42), and years of experience barely at all (.07). The strongest process is both: a hands-on lab, then a structured conversation about the candidate's own work. The report gives your interviewer exactly that material.
Start with 3 free assessments
Every organization gets 3 candidate credits to try it. After that, buy packs of credits or add hiring to your plan. Onboarding plans are included in team plans.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
See it with your own hiring process
We'll set up an assessment for one of your open roles during the demo.