Should you agree to a trial job when you interview for a job?

There’s a fine line between proving your skills and giving away work for free.

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Key points

• Many companies these days ask job applicants to do actual work to test their competence.
• It’s important to know where to draw the line so you don’t get taken advantage of.

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A friend of mine recently applied for a copywriting role. After successfully passing through several interviews, the company she was negotiating with asked her to create a mock marketing sheet to gauge her abilities.

It was a bit of work, but my friend was willing to put in the time because being employed meant a higher salary and better benefits. She ended up getting hired, so she was happy she agreed to do the job.

But some companies embrace the concept of job applicants demonstrating their skills to an unfair degree—namely, by asking them to do actual work to test their performance. Now, on the one hand, it’s understandable that companies would want to see how well candidates do before extending an offer.

But what about those candidates who complete these assignments and don’t land an offer? At this point, it’s easy to argue that these candidates gave away free labor.

If you’re in the process of applying for a job, it’s important to know how to respond to a trial assignment request. Otherwise, you could easily find yourself taken advantage of.

When companies cross the line

It’s one thing to be asked to complete a short task or dummy task so that the company can decide if you’re the right fit for the job. But it’s another thing for a company to ask you to do actual work that you might not get paid for. And you should make every effort to avoid this situation.

So what should you do if you are asked to produce work during the interview process? A good bet is to assess the situation and try to gauge how reasonable the request is.

Let’s say you’re applying for a role as a copywriter and you’re asked to create a single paragraph about a product your potential employer needs to market. Although this may take time, a paragraph is a fairly reasonable question. But if you’re asked to develop a full-fledged marketing campaign that will take you hours to put together, you might want to back off.

In that case, you may want to explain that while you are certainly interested in the job at hand, you have a busy schedule and can only devote a certain amount of time to a trial assignment. The company you’re talking to may take this as a reasonable response. If it doesn’t and it throws your app off because of this pushback, then it’s probably not the right place to work anyway.

Similarly, let’s say you are applying for a role and are asked to complete a short simulation task. This is not such a far-fetched request. But if you’re asked to do actual work that the company in question will then keep and use, that effectively crosses the line into unpaid work. This is a situation you may want to back away from.

Make the right call

It can be difficult to determine which candidate is right for a job based on a series of interviews. And it’s understandable that employers want to see the skills that candidates claim to have demonstrated. But if you’re applying for a new job, it’s important not to be taken advantage of during the interview process.

It’s one thing to do a short task or mock to prove you’re up to the task. But if you’re asked to spend many hours on a task, that’s a whole different story. And unless the company in question is willing to deposit a modest sum into your bank account as a consolation prize if you don’t get the job, you may want to outsource any task that will take more than an hour of your time.