How Work Sample Tests Help You Hire Better

Your goal during the hiring process is to select the candidate most likely to succeed on the job, but relying on typical selection methods like resume credentials and free-flowing conversational interviews is risky. Neither gives you real data about how the candidate is likely to perform.

A more effective approach is to use a progression of skills-based assessments that increase in rigor as the hiring process moves forward, culminating in a collaborative exercise: the work sample test.

1. Written prompts asking candidates to describe their experience in defined key competency areas.
2. Structured interviews that explore those same competencies in-depth, focusing on how candidates created impact, collaborated with others, and measured results.
3. The work sample test during which candidates demonstrates those competencies in a real-world context.

What Is a Work Sample Test?

A work sample test is a type of hiring assessment that allows you to exchange ideas with the candidate, similar to how you would talk through a project with a team member. It involves asking candidates to think through a small assignment that reflects the responsibilities and challenges they would face on the job and share their approach with you during an interview.

The work sample assignment serves at a starting point for a back-and-forth conversation during which you can analyze the candidate’s thinking, suggest pivots or roadblocks, and introduce on-the-job scenarios to explore how they might handle them.

While work sample tests are sometimes called performance tasks or case study interviews, at Staffing Advisors, we refer to them as “collaborative exercises” because that more accurately reflects the dynamic of the interview.

Where Does a Work Sample Test Fit in the Interview Sequence?

The exercise comes later in the sequence, after you have selected finalists to move forward. At that stage, you have heard how candidates talk about past work; the work sample test shows how candidates would apply that experience to a current issue or challenge in your organization. You’ll be able to see candidates’ functional and technical skills alongside job-relevant soft skills.

Designing the Work Sample Test

The content of the exercise will vary by career level and functional area. Here is a basic structure to follow:

• Decide what you want to learn. Consider the 3-5 skills most essential to the role. What do you want to see in action? What’s unique about this role and your organization? What would convince you that this person has the skills to do the job and succeed in your work environment?
• Identify a challenge that reflects what you want to learn and that this person will face in their day-to-day work. The exercise should be substantive enough to generate a meaningful discussion, but narrow enough in scope that candidates can prepare in 2-4 hours. C-suite roles may require additional time from the candidate, matched to the seniority of the role.
• Provide context and resources. Give candidates real information to work with. Consider any supporting materials, such as a strategic plan, org chart, or membership data, that would help candidates build enough knowledge about your organization and the role to participate in a relevant, in-depth discussion.
• Ask candidates to come prepared to discuss in their next interview. Don’t make the mistake of treating the work sample as an end in itself, asking candidates to turn something in and stopping there. A deliverable alone tells you nothing about how a candidate arrived at their conclusion, or how they will pivot when something new comes up. The discussion is the most valuable part of the exercise.

Preparing for a Productive Discussion

Prepare discussion questions and follow-up prompts ahead of the interview; your questions should reflect what you want to learn. Think about what matters most to your hiring decision. Consider the nature of the position and how decisions are made.

For example, will this person need to handle on-the-fly pushback from stakeholders? Or are they working on complex systems with time to weigh options and gather input before making recommendations? In the first scenario, you’d want to learn how a candidate handles pressure, thinks quickly, and responds to a challenge in the moment. In the second, you’d want to learn how they gather information, weigh tradeoffs, and build toward a recommendation.

Also, consider who on your team would be best to participate during the interview. We recommend including team members with functional or subject-matter knowledge relevant to the exercise so their feedback provides contextual data about how this candidate might perform on the job.

A Note About Candidates’ Possible Use of AI

Be aware that candidates may use AI tools to prepare for the assignment—and that’s fine, unless you specifically prohibit it. Because AI can produce seemingly polished work for many scenarios, a good discussion is essential. A conversation will allow you to evaluate whether candidates really understand the work.

Depending on the role and where your organization sits on the AI adoption spectrum, it may even be valuable to see how candidates would use AI in their job function, as long as their expertise is evident in the outcome.

If your assignment includes explicit use of AI tools because that is an on-the-job competency you want to evaluate, be specific about your expectations.

Following the Discussion

As you gather and synthesize feedback following the discussion, keep in mind that candidates are working with limited information about your organization and the role. Their response should be directionally accurate—it may not necessarily be “right.”

What you are looking for is evidence that they can think through the right kinds of problems, respond to feedback, incorporate new information, and engage with the perspectives of others. The discussion will also give you a sense of how they might add to and elevate your team’s culture.

Better Data Means Better Hiring

Extensive research shows that work sample tests, like the collaborative exercise we’ve outlined here, more accurately predict success on the job than interviews alone.

Work sample tests allow you to see how candidates solve problems with a given set of resources and how they organize their thinking. You’ll gather data about their communication styles, how they adapt, and how they react to feedback—all within the context of the kind of work they’d be doing for your organization. And when you have two strong finalists, a well-designed work sample will show you the tradeoffs you would make in choosing one candidate over the other.

Evaluating skills in multiple contexts—in which candidates talk and write about past work and demonstrate their thinking during the work sample test—gives you a rich set of data to compare against your organization’s needs.