Hiring managers use work trials as AI resumes make interviews harder 

• Key Insight: Discover how work trials are replacing resumes to verify real-world candidate skills.
• What's at Stake: Poor hiring decisions can cost firms dearly and erode team productivity.
• Supporting Data: Replacing employees costs 50–200% of annual salary, per SHRM.
  Source: Bullets generated by AI with editorial review

In the age of AI, where job seekers can generate polished resumes in seconds, some employers are shifting to work trials to see real skills in action. 

"Hiring managers often can't tell the difference between people and AI bots," says Jennifer Dulski, a careers and workplace expert and CEO of Rising Team — a leadership and team-building platform.

"At Rising Team, our own hiring processes have been overwhelmed by thousands of bots. Hiring teams now need better ways to evaluate talent, and work trials can allow a company to see more of a person's real work and get to see how they'll interact with the team."

Work trials can last anywhere from a week to several months, giving both employers and candidates time to determine whether the role — and the workplace — are the right fit, said Dulski. Applicants are sometimes paid, depending on the length of the trial, and are assigned real tasks to complete alongside the people they would work with in the role. 

"The organizations that are most effective at using work trials have very clear hiring scorecards for each role in terms of the outcomes they want the person to deliver and the attributes they want the person to have, and they use a work trial to evaluate against those criteria," Dulski said in an email interview. 

Dulski recently spoke to Employee Benefit News about the rise of work trials and what job seekers should look out for before agreeing to one. 

What problem are companies trying to solve with work trials?
It's very expensive and problematic to make a bad hiring choice. According to data from SHRM, the cost of replacing an employee can range from 50% to 200% of their annual salary, depending on their level. Based on insights from leadership hiring and advisory firm ghSMART, hiring the wrong person at the C level can drain an organization of up to 15 times the person's compensation once you factor in opportunity costs and damaged morale. A work trial can help you make a better hiring choice and reduce the cost of replacing someone and the time spent on training them.

How are these trials typically structured? 
Right now, there's a lot of buzz about multiday or weeklong work trials. These short trials are useful from the candidate's perspective since they can participate in the trial without interrupting a job search across multiple companies. (And if you've seen the reality show "Company Retreat," then you've seen how a temporary assistant, who didn't know he was on TV, was able to show real value and build high trust with a team in only one week!) However, in most cases a week is too short to assess a candidate's quality of work and their values. Plus, setting up and monitoring a work trial can take a significant amount of time for multiple people on the employer side who need to provide context and support. 

Given this time commitment, it's important to be thoughtful about who you invite to do them. You only want to invite people who you've already put through a rigorous vetting process and who you think are likely candidates. We aim for longer project-based trials when that can work for candidates. If companies can pay the candidate a full-time salary during the project, that often works.  

What legal or ethical concerns should employers be thinking about?
Although work trials are becoming increasingly common, businesses should pay job candidates for any work trials that are more than just a few hours long. Employers should also be making sure that job candidates aren't able to access any of the organization's sensitive documents or strategies during work trials, and likely want to be protected by an NDA. It's also important to be clear upfront that completing a longer work trial is not a guarantee of future employment. 

Could work trials introduce new forms of bias, or help reduce it?
Ideally, work trials are a good way to reduce bias. As an example, some people are more introverted and can struggle with interviews where they have to speak on the spot, whereas work trials can give people the opportunity to demonstrate their skills in a more realistic setting. However, there are some risks that work trials can introduce bias as well. Some candidates need to keep their current employment while they look for other roles and will not be able to participate in a work trial. The fact that work trials are limited to a subset of candidates can bring some level of bias to hiring.

How do these trials impact candidate trust and employer brand?
Work trials can strengthen an employer's brand by proving that the organization is finding creative, forward-thinking ways to provide opportunities in this difficult labor market. Giving candidates and employees a chance to work together closely before someone joins full time is also a great way to boost candidate trust, and strengthen trust between future teammates. At Rising Team we've hired many people after successful work trials and consulting projects, and it's always a great way to ensure a productive start at the company.

What should job seekers watch out for before agreeing to one?
Job seekers should make sure they understand the goals of a work trial upfront and how success will be measured. Some are just time-based to see how people will work together and demonstrate general skills, where others are outcome-based and expect specific deliverables. It's important for people to understand the details around expectations, compensation, etc., before they begin a work trial.