Interviews are great for understanding how a candidate thinks, and diving deeper into their expertise and experience. But they don’t always give you a clear picture of how a candidate will perform on the job. For this, many recruiters turn to job trials.
Job trials and trial days are beneficial for both recruiters and candidates. Recruiters—and hiring managers—can see how a candidate performs in a real-world environment, and how well they collaborate with the existing team. For candidates, job trials offer a window into what it would be like to work at the company, and whether or not there’s a cultural fit.
This article will explore the benefits of job trials, and provide step-by-step instructions on how to best organize these events.
What is a job trial?
A job trial is a brief period of time during which a candidate completes an assignment for a prospective company—either independently or alongside their potential team. The goal is to assess the candidate’s compatibility for the job, skills requirements, and company culture.
Job trials can occur in office, remotely, or independently, depending on the nature of the test and assignment. This usually occurs after a phone screening or interview, and gives candidates an opportunity to perform real-time tasks or projects that are relevant to the prospective position.
What are job trial days?
Trial days are intended as an intensive day (or half-day) designed to delve deeper into a candidate’s skills, experience, and cultural fit, all while giving them a real taste of what it’s like to work at your company.
Benefits of job trials for companies
As mentioned, job trials offer a range of benefits for companies who need to guarantee a suitable hire for top-priority jobs. Here are three of the main benefits of job trials for companies, recruiters, and hiring managers.
1. Verification of skill and cultural fit
The first reason companies hold a job trial day is to see how well the candidate fits in with the company culture and the team, and how effectively they can demonstrate the necessary skills for the job.
It’s extremely important that any candidate on a trial gets along with their potential team and adds to the company culture in a positive way. As companies grow, each new person should bring a new element to the table.
These elements should be a positive addition that help mold the company in a brighter way. Initially, the work trial allows the company to see how well the candidate fits in with the company’s culture and team.
2. Insights into the candidates’ decision-making skills
Holding a job trial allows the team to understand the candidates’ thought processes as they perform a task.
During a work trial, certain decision-making skills can be uncovered—these can be both desirable or/and undesirable for the role. Typically during a job trial, candidates are asked to carry out an assignment or challenge in the office.
Whether they can complete the task or not isn’t always what’s important. Employers are often looking for certain capacities that lie outside of the task, in the approach to the problem.
3. Gives the employer and candidate a genuine experience of working together
Job trials, by nature, put words spoken during the interview to the test. They create a real-world environment in which candidates and existing team members can work together to determine compatibility. For candidates, this allows them to gauge whether or not this role is for them. For companies, this ensures that they can make an informed decision about which candidate aligns best with their needs and their team culture.
After a candidate has killed it during the first 1 or 2 interviews, it’s time to put everything they’ve said in the interviews to the test. They’ve proved they can talk the talk. A job trial allows them to walk the walk. But conducting a trial that does just that, isn’t always as straightforward as it may seem.
Is a trial day right for my company?
The short answer? And get ready for frustration, here. It depends. It’s not as black and white as a ‘yes’ or ‘no’, because each company is different, and so is their hiring process. So, it truly does depend… and on quite a few things.
The good news, though, is that we’ve listed the variables to help you, as a company, make the right decision.
1. Seniority of the position
While corporations may have extensive resources to run job trials, other companies may struggle to justify the time and resources a trial day costs for entry-level positions.
Senior positions are better suited in general as a work trial will allow for the employer and candidate to dive into the details of the position or project.
2. Skillset of candidates
For some skill sets, it may be absolutely crucial for candidates to complete an assignment to verify skills. Take the world of teaching, for example. You need to know whether a new teacher in your school can stand up in front of the class, speak clearly, and deliver on all those pedagogical strategies they have claimed they use in their interview.
Some companies may allow the candidate to complete the challenge at home, however, for some skill sets you may want to verify the work in person.
3. Active vs passive candidates
Simply put, passive candidates will be unlikely to attend a trial day if they are currently working.
4. Team resources
If you don’t have the time to dedicate to running regular trials, that will negatively impact the quality of the work trial.
A bad job trial could easily dissuade candidates from joining your team.
Some companies choose to run trial periods instead, however, these cannot 100% eliminate the risk of poor hires and require a longer time investment (up to a month). It’s all about weighing up your priorities and how desperate you are for the position to be filled.
How to organize an effective job trial
If you’ve decided that a job trial is a feasible candidate qualification step for you, you might wonder what it takes to run a good one. The main quality you’ll need? Coordination. Without it, things can unravel and go south. And fast.
For anyone involved in the process, you have to make sure that all decision-making employees are going to be available for the duration of the trial day. The more the merrier! If you run it well, this will give your team the opportunity to get to know the candidate in depth.
So, how do you organize a job trial day for your candidates? Every company will put its stamp on it, and they may adjust the process to suit their working environment. But, as a whole, they follow this order.
Step 1: Invite your candidates
First things first, let your candidates know they’ve made it to the next round and that they’ve been invited to a work trial day!
To set expectations about what to expect from the job trial, explain that they were impressive in the interview, and you’d love to see them in action before progressing to the next phase. This reassurance and explanation will help defog any concerns the candidate may have about the job trial.
Once you’ve informed them of next steps, coordinate with each candidate which day is best for them to come in without it overlapping with other candidates. Let them know what to expect when it comes to the task, team meetings, and schedule.
Attaching a PDF document to an email outlining what they can expect will go down brilliantly, and it shows consideration on your part as a company.
Step 2: Inform your team
Inform your team about the candidates that are coming in for a trial day. Schedule it into the company calendar so that even employees who are not involved with the trial are aware that someone is coming to the office. This will give everyone the heads up to put their best foot forward. Plus, you’ll get no shocked faces when someone new enters the working environment.
You can even share the same schedule you sent to your candidate with your team, so everyone’s on the same page. This also allows your team to check in with the candidate and acts as a conversation starter if needed.
Make sure to track the candidate process through your ATS which allows both HR and the department employers to be on the same page. You may want to consider adding evaluations or interview scorecards to team members involved in the work trial. The more specific information you can share, the better your outcome.
Step 3: Meet with your hiring manager to develop a challenge
The challenge or task is a central element of a trial day. You have to decide on the nature of the challenge, and make sure you can provide a reason for it. There’s little point in making the trial task surround a situation or duty that would never happen when the candidate becomes an employee.
The reason for your task needs to be abundantly clear. What specific skills are you looking for? Is it appropriate for a junior or senior position? These are things you need to consider when developing a challenge for a specific vacancy.
If you’re struggling to come up with a challenge, try working backward. First, take a look at the job description you created for this vacancy. Note down the key skills that cropped up, and order them in importance. Now, consider how you can assess those skills.
Say, for example, you’re hiring for a customer service position in a claims department. Your job description highlights skills like:
- The ability to work well under pressure
- The in-depth knowledge of sales psychology and technique
- Good team-work skills
Based on these 3 core skills, you’ll need to create a task that helps assess all of them. Perhaps a group task where the candidate works with a few members of the team to sell something ‘unsellable’.
Let’s take a look at another example. Say you’re looking for a front-end web designer. The job trial exercise could have the candidate create a landing page under pressure. The designer could also go through the current website and describe what they would change and what they would make better.
All candidates that are in the running for the same job position should all have the same challenge. Again, when you’re planning the trial make a checklist of characteristics a candidate should have in order to be the right fit for the position. These will be the skills each candidate should demonstrate in the completion of the task.
Of course, make sure you have all the tools, programs, and equipment necessary for a candidate to complete the task.
Step 4: Confirm with your candidate
Before a candidate comes into the office, just check up with them the day before. Confirm that they are still coming in, that they are still interested, and are as excited for the trial day as you are!
It would be a big letdown for a candidate not to show up because they didn’t hear from you the day before. The world is a busy place, and you can’t expect every candidate to remember - though some will. It’s better practice to just reassure that everything is good to go for tomorrow.
Step 5: Fill in the small details
On the day of the job trial, make sure you are wearing something that is in line with how most people dress in the office with an extra touch of business class. If you’re remote, make sure you present yourself in a professional manner that matches with the culture the candidate can expect on a daily basis.
You’ll also need to ensure you have a workspace ready for your candidate as well to help ease them in. For remote job trials, make sure that the candidate has access to all of the tools, files, and accounts they’ll need to accomplish their tasks and collaborate with others on the team.
Rushing around trying to find equipment or a quiet room for the assessment can make your candidate’s nerves skyrocket. And let’s not forget: all the while you are interviewing and assessing them, they are also assessing you and the company.
Step 6: Welcome your candidate
When your candidate arrives in the office or joins the call, go the extra mile to make them feel comfortable and excited about the company. This will give them the confidence they need to shine through this trial. Everyone always appreciates it if you offer them something to drink and a quick check-in in terms of how they’re feeling. It eases any tension they are experiencing.
Make sure to take them on a tour around the office and introduce them to the team. Remote teams can stage a Slack or Microsoft Teams round of welcomes, and even hold a quick introductory call so that everyone can put names to faces. You’ll have already prepped your team for this, so they’ll likely have thought of topics to cover and will offer a welcoming smile.
Step 7: Assign the candidate their challenge
The moment everyone has been waiting for. The task or challenge is at hand. Drum roll, please!
Make sure your candidate has a solid and well-crafted brief. It’s best to provide this in both written and verbal format, and ensure you check that the candidate understands what they need to do. Additionally, let them know who to ask should they have any questions as they work.
Remember, it’s not always important that they complete the task. What is important is their thought process. Are they able to figure things out on their own? What tools are they using to accomplish this? Are they demonstrating the key skills that are required to excel at this position?
An important thing to notice is how they work. Depending on the type of office space, it is crucial to be aware of their typical working conditions and if they can adapt well and thrive in yours.
For example, in an open office space where people are next to each other, it could be important that they’re able to work well with noise. If the job test is remote, take note of how they use the collaboration tools available to them to stay aligned with your team and communicate any hurdles or thoughts they have during the process.
When the challenge is complete, it’s time to go through their work with them. Ask them questions and ask them why they did certain things, allowing you to understand how their mind works. Most of the time, the candidate’s process offers more insight than whether the task was a success or not.
Step 8: Spend time with the team
Lastly, if the candidate is at the office, have them eat lunch with the team or meet a few team members! If they’re remote, host a virtual lunch date. During each social gathering, see how well they fit in with everyone in the community and culture at work. While they’ll have met one or two team members during their tour, this is the stage where they can chat more openly and assess whether they gel with the rest of your employees.
Some things generally to look out for when a candidate is meeting the team on a job trial are:
- Are they engaging with the team? Asking questions or sharing more about themselves?
- Are there any unusual behaviors that might cause trouble later on? Are they on their phone a lot?
- How do they seem to respond to the team? Is there a steady flow of conversation?
It is okay for someone to be an introvert, but if someone is on their phone and not even trying to get to know their potential future colleagues that could be a red flag.
That said, it’s best to consider any sort of social challenges the candidate has. Social anxiety, especially in extremes, can get the best of a person when they’re under high-pressure situations. While this shouldn’t change an outcome, it’s something you do need to take into account when introducing your candidate to your team.
Step 9: Evaluate the candidate
Finally, it’s time to make the decision!
Create a set standard for the evaluation so that everyone is evaluated equally. This helps to eliminate any hiring bias that you and your team might not even be aware of.
A collaborative hiring platform like Recruitee can help to streamline this process and save you valuable time—especially when it comes to gathering feedback from the hiring team. When using Recruitee, you can request evaluations from the team members involved in the work trial. Once requested, the evaluations will be compiled centrally on the candidate record, allowing managers to make an informed decision without the heavy admin time.
In general, you should be reviewing each candidate for the following:
- Performance and demonstration of critical skills
- Problem solving and critical thinking
- Adaptability and willingness to learn
- Whether they take initiative to solve problems
- Collaboration and communication with your team
- Values and work ethic
- Reception to feedback and coaching
- Presentation skills
- Cultural fit and alignment with your existing team
Make job trials part of your recruitment process
Work trials can be a great way to deep dive into your candidates’ experience, skills, and personality in a practical environment. When run consistently and with the candidate’s experience in mind, they can be a great tool to improve your quality of hire.
Job trial FAQs
How long do job trials last?
A job trial can last for a few hours to several months, depending on the role in question and the employment laws in which the company operates. A paid job trial can last one day up to three months or so. On the longer end of that spectrum, the job trial becomes more of a trial period, rather than an assessment of skills or culture fit.
Should job trials be paid or unpaid?
Job trials, in most instances, should be paid. The exception might be if the job trial is a small assignment that’s designed to assess critical thinking and skills competencies. In general, though, any work completed for the organization should be paid.
