They may go by different names (tasks, projects, presentations, plans, etc). But they all have something in common: elongating interview processes through simulated work, often to both the detriment of the candidate’s experience and the company’s ability to hire.

In this article, I want to explore what we can do to make tasks better. I do not think they should go away. Just improved. Significantly.

First, let’s start with some of the pros and cons from the perspectives of candidates and hiring managers.

	What I appreciate as a….	What I dislike as a…
Hiring Manager	The additional “signal” that I get that is difficult to pick up in a live interview. It’s a better window into how they think and communicate.	The idea of constructing a task that is job-relevant and does not create an onerous expectation (that may lead to the candidate pulling out of process).
As a Candidate	The opportunity to think through a response in a structured way versus the performative aspect of live interviews.	Having to expend a significant amount of time on something that may be reviewed briefly, and with little initial instruction.

I don’t think it is wrong to expect people to put in ‘work’ as part of an interview process. But, if we as companies are not compensating for this time, then we should be incredibly conscious of the effort and product asked of candidates.

Who is responsible for creating tasks?

The ultimate responsibly for creating a task sits with a hiring manager.

A recruiter (and, depending on your team, HRBPs or Recruiting Managers) should be accountable for the task meeting a certain standard.

However, part of the reason that tasks could “use work” is that:

We (as recruiting / people professionals) don’t provide sufficient support resources in creating a task. So, hiring managers are creating something (largely) from scratch.
The hiring manager typically views this as less important than their “actual work.” They end up working on it less than they should (and likely during waning hours). They rush to get it out, sometimes because it is a blocker in actually moving a candidate forward.
We haven’t actually thought critically and strategically about how tasks factor into interview processes.

There are some cases where a task can exist in a structured form (ex. a coding challenge) that is used to hire many people. That may be the work of a quasi-committee (ex. Engineering Managers collectively defining a task).

If you believe in tasks, what should you do?

I do believe that seeing work product, based on a narrowly defined and job aligned project, gives you a great deal of insight into a candidate. Also, this work product is likely the result of their greatest polish (ie. not what you are likely to see with day to day output).

Principles for Tasks

I propose a few operating principles for tasks. These can be applied broadly across functions. These principles are informed by my experience as a hiring manager, a People leader and as a candidate:

A task should be defined to take the least amount of time possible necessary to get the appropriate signal from the project.
The tasks should involve a formal review and discussion with the candidate. Otherwise, it becomes a five minute skim by the hiring manager.
When designing tasks, the default should be retrospective in applicability and not prospective. Ideally, pulling from pre-created company resources and artifacts.