Only two of the seven big platforms are proctored no matter who sends the link: HireVue and Karat, because a recorded session is the product rather than an option on it. HackerRank, CodeSignal, Codility and HackerEarth ship proctoring as separate switches an employer turns on per assessment, so two invites from the same platform can monitor you completely differently. CoderPad has no proctoring layer at all, only live alerts to the interviewer. So the real question is which of six capture types is on for your invite, and every one of them is disclosed to you before the clock starts.
Six capture types, seven platforms, one table
Each cell says whether that capture type is always on for anyone who receives that platform's assessment, employer-configurable as a per-test setting, or not a feature of the platform itself. The last column is the single place in the candidate flow where you get told, which is the part most comparison posts leave out.
| Platform | Continuous screen recording | Periodic screenshots | Webcam stills | Tab-focus logging | Paste logging | Fullscreen enforcement | Where in the flow you are told |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HackerRank | Not a feature | Not a feature | Employer-configurable | Employer-configurable | Employer-configurable | Employer-configurable | The per-test instructions page between the invite link and question one, read while the clock is still stopped. |
| CodeSignal | Employer-configurable | Not a feature | Employer-configurable | Always on | Always on | Employer-configurable | The device and system check, plus the identity step on a Certified Assessment, both of which run before the timer. |
| Codility | Not a feature | Not a feature | Employer-configurable | Always on | Always on | Not a feature | The rules screen and task instructions; focus and paste events reach the report with no separate warning, so assume both. |
| CoderPad | Not a feature | Not a feature | Not a feature | Always on | Always on | Not a feature | Nothing is disclosed pre-session. The interviewer sees the alerts live, so treat a bare pad link as watched. |
| HackerEarth | Not a feature | Employer-configurable | Employer-configurable | Employer-configurable | Employer-configurable | Employer-configurable | The invite and the instructions screen; a proctored test will not let Start work until camera permission is granted. |
| Karat | Not a feature (the call is recorded, your desktop is not) | Not a feature | Always on (continuous video) | Not a feature | Not a feature | Not a feature | The scheduling email and the consent line the interview engineer reads at the top of the call. |
| HireVue | Not a feature | Not a feature | Always on (continuous video) | Employer-configurable | Employer-configurable | Employer-configurable | The consent notice on the recording setup screen, before the practice question, next to the camera and microphone prompts. |
Read the columns as physical acts, not menu labels. Continuous screen recording is a video of your display; periodic screenshots are single frames of it at intervals; webcam stills are photographs of your face and whatever is behind you. Tab-focus logging lists the moments the window lost focus and for how long, with no record of where you went. Paste logging is an event plus a character count when code arrives whole. Fullscreen enforcement captures nothing visual, it counts exits.
Why the two screen columns are mostly empty
Because a web page cannot capture your display without asking. Anything running in a browser tab has to call the screen-capture API, which forces the browser to draw a picker listing your screens, windows and tabs, and to keep a sharing indicator running all session. There is no silent variant of that prompt, and no assessment platform can suppress it. The test is therefore mechanical rather than reputational: if nothing asked you to choose a screen, and you installed nothing, your desktop was not recorded, whatever a forum thread said about that company.
That is also why the two rows which look most alarming carry the least screen risk. Karat and HireVue record continuously, but what they record is the camera, the microphone and, on Karat, the code appearing in their own pad. Neither is filming your second monitor. Meanwhile the platform most able to record a desktop, CodeSignal in a fully proctored configuration, still has to make you click through a share picker to do it.
The exception that ruins the tidy version of this story is a third-party proctor bolted on top. If an invite tells you to install an application or an extension, or names a second product before the assessment link will open, the platform row above stops governing and you should assume screen, camera and environment are all in scope.
The column nearly everyone underrates
Paste logging, because on several of these platforms it is not really a switch. CodeSignal, Codility and CoderPad all keep a keystroke-level replay of the editor, so a reviewer can scrub the timeline and watch the solution being built. Whether or not anybody enabled a setting called paste detection, a forty-line function that materialises in a single frame looks nothing like the same function typed over six minutes with two failed runs in the middle. The replay shows the difference without needing a flag to point at it.
Karat lands in the same place for a different reason. There is no automated paste log in its row, but the session recording shows code appearing while a human being is talking to you, which is a stronger form of the same evidence. The rule across all seven platforms: how your code arrives is recorded far more consistently than what is on your screen.
Working out your own configuration in about a minute
Search the invite for five words
Look for proctor, webcam, camera, full screen and browser. An invite naming a second product, or asking you to install anything, puts you outside the table entirely. One that gives you a link, a duration and a deadline is normally the lightest configuration that platform offers.
Read the instructions page with the clock stopped
On HackerRank, Codility and HackerEarth a rules page sits between the link and question one, and the timer has not started while you are on it. It is written per test, so it beats anything general you have read about the platform. On CodeSignal the equivalent moment is the device check and, on a Certified Assessment, the identity step.
Watch what the browser asks for
A camera prompt with a preview of your own face means webcam capture is on, and the hardware indicator light confirms it independently of anything the page claims. A screen picker means screen capture. Being thrown into fullscreen on Start means enforcement is on and every exit gets counted.
For CoderPad, skip all of the above
There is no pre-session disclosure, because there is no exam wrapper around the pad. The interviewer receives focus and paste notifications while you work, in the same window they are watching you type in. Assume a person is watching, which is the right assumption for a live pad anyway.
Where this table is likely to be wrong for you
Three caveats, and they matter more than the grid does. First, every vendor here changes its product, and enterprise accounts can be configured in ways the public documentation never describes, so treat each cell as the shape of the system rather than a promise about your invite. Second, the line between always on and employer-configurable is the fuzziest part of this page: options tend to get folded into the default report over time, which is why we mark focus and paste logging as always on wherever a keystroke replay already exists. Third, we left cells at not a feature where we could not verify a behaviour, so those mean unverified rather than impossible. The instructions page you were shown is the authority, not this page.
For per-switch detail on the two platforms with the most moving parts, there is a breakdown of the HackerRank proctoring settings and one on Codility focus and paste events.
Where OfferPilot AI is the wrong tool
We publish a Windows overlay that is excluded from screen capture at the operating-system level, so it does not appear in Zoom, Teams, Meet, OBS or screenshots. People ask us to map that onto a table like this one, so here is the plain version. Capture exclusion is relevant to exactly two of the six columns, continuous screen recording and periodic screenshots. It has no effect on the other four, and none at all on a human being.
- It does not touch a webcam. A lens photographs your face and your room, and no compositor setting changes what it sees. That covers every Karat and HireVue session by definition.
- It does not touch tab-focus or paste logging, because those are events inside the assessment page rather than pixels on a display.
- It does not defeat a lockdown or secure browser, which governs what your session is permitted to do rather than how the desktop is drawn.
- It does nothing about a person watching your eyes track across something they cannot see, which is the oldest signal on the list.
So on any of these assessments while proctoring is live, OfferPilot AI is the wrong tool, and using it would breach rules you accepted on the instructions page. Where it earns its keep is the practice beforehand: Code Copilot screenshots a problem with Ctrl+Alt+S, handles a statement spanning several scrolls, and returns the intuition, a dry run and the Big-O rather than code you could not defend under questioning. The follow-up call after a passed assessment is a different situation again, and the company Q&A generator builds a question bank for that company and role.
The short version
Two platforms record you always, four leave it to the employer, one does not try. Screen capture is the rarest column and the only one that cannot happen without you clicking a picker first. Focus and paste are the commonest, the cheapest to collect and the hardest to argue with afterwards. All of it is disclosed before your timer starts, provided you read the invite and the instructions page rather than hunting for the Start button.
Related guides
- Is CodeSignal Proctored? Camera, ID, Screen and Tab Rules
- Can CoderPad See If You Switch Tabs? CoderPad vs HackerRank
- Does HireVue Record Your Screen or Just Your Camera and Mic?
- Is a Karat Interview Recorded? Who Watches the Video and When
- Does HackerRank Record Your Screen? What Each Test Mode Captures