The rise of days-long (and often unpaid) ‘work trials’ for job applicants

The job search is exhausting: an application, several rounds of interviews, skills assessments, and, increasingly, even a work trial. Work trials are when an interviewee is asked to complete job-related tasks over a short period of time—often a few days or up to a week—so an employer can evaluate how they perform in a real working environment before making a hiring decision. As recruiters and hiring managers sift through a flood of applications that can sound increasingly similar—especially in the age of AI—these trials have emerged as a way to evaluate candidates in real time.  This shift ...