Current dispatches from the job market describe an exhausting scene. On one side are overloaded recruiters, shuffling thousands of applications for a single role with limited resources and little time. On the other side are weary applicants feeling defeated and devalued by impersonal, drawn-out interview cycles and unresponsive employers.

One particular point of tension is the candidate test project. To evaluate applicants’ skills and narrow the talent pool, employers are now frequently asking job candidates to complete test projects or evaluations in the form of strategy proposals, presentations, blog posts, research projects, and video-editing tests, to name a few. But job seekers are getting burned out, sinking hours into unpaid projects with seemingly little relevance to the role, only to be ignored or rejected by an automated email.

It's rough out there, especially for well-paid office workers seeking a new job. “Welcome to the white-collar recession,” declared Business Insider. Reports Wall Street Journal columnist Callum Borchers: “I hear from a lot of white-collar workers on the job hunt who say it’s much harder to get hired than the unemployment numbers make it sound.” Said Bloomberg: “Take-home assignments during the interview process are on the rise, irking candidates.”

While employers may have the advantage at the moment, they should avoid overplaying their hand, since their reputations are at stake. Job seekers who spoke to From Day One describe growing cynical and suspicious of companies that request burdensome projects, and especially of those that don’t compensate candidates for their time. Yet it may be the delivery and design of these projects, not their intention, that is souring relations between candidates and companies.

How Test Projects Go Wrong

Beth Miller (not her real name)* has built a 20-year career as a writing instructor and communications practitioner in higher education and nonprofits, and for the last year, following a layoff, she has been on the job hunt.

After submitting an application for a job in a university’s development office, Miller received an automated email inviting her to complete a performance task: an asynchronous video interview that was expected to take 30 minutes. Uncomfortable on camera yet eager to do it well, Miller sunk four hours into the project.

A week later, at about 9 p.m. on the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend, Miller received an email with another request: a full grant proposal to be completed over the holiday, due Monday, she told From Day One. When Miller replied with questions, her emails quickly bounced back with out-of-office messages.

“The most difficult thing is that the emails were not coming from a person,” she said. They were addressed to ‘dear applicant,’ and signed, ‘the hiring team,’” she said. Unable to get a new due date for the assignment, Miller gave up her weekend to the project.

Miller’s story is like that of many job seekers right now. Unwieldy evaluations are popping up across industries and job types, and in a labor market where the competition is often among the applicants, rather than the employers, candidates are getting burnt out by the requests, sometimes completing several projects before they even speak to a recruiter.

“These are, by no means, simple and easy,” said Liane Paonessa, who was applying for director-level roles in corporate PR earlier this year. “They’re complex, detailed, and basically provide the company with a free strategic plan and content from every candidate.”

Further, they seem to be redundant. Some employers require a portfolio of prior work samples in addition to test projects. “In most cases, I [got] no feedback whatsoever on the projects, other than a ‘Thank you for your excellent work,’ before ghosting me and later sending me the standard form rejection email,” said Paonessa.

Many job applicants who spoke to From Day One believe that employers use unpaid test projects to get free work from desperate applicants. Job seekers describe being asked to draft 12-month strategy plans, make hour-long presentations, pitch detailed article ideas, write website content, produce fresh code, and even provide names of other people who might be good additions to the company.

As exhausted applicants churn through these often unacknowledged projects, it reinforces their cynical beliefs about employers’ attitudes towards job seekers. “It’s so dehumanizing to constantly be putting yourself at the feet of an organization and trying to tell them why you’re worth hiring,” Miller said.

How Test Projects Go Right

Job seekers don’t object to test projects in principle–workers know they have to demonstrate their skills to land a role, and many are glad to show off what they can do–but they do want a better experience: one with boundaries, respect, and communication.

When recounting good experiences with test projects, job seekers describe assignments with clear, limited scopes that teach them something about the role responsibilities, an ability to get feedback on their work, and some kind of compensation.

Last spring, Tori Zhou, a content-marketing professional in New York City, was in the running for a content-writing role at a tech company when she was asked to complete an assessment that changed the way she thinks of test projects. Not only were the instructions crystal-clear, the project came with a disclaimer, assuring applicants their work wouldn’t be used beyond the hiring process. “I thought it was so considerate that they said that,” Zhou explained. “I also believed it because of the structure of the test.”

The assignment included copy-editing a few pieces of content and writing a new introductory paragraph for an existing blog post. But don’t worry, we’re not going to update it, the request read. And even though she didn’t get the job, the company offered constructive feedback on her work.

“This is such a positive memory for me. I feel like it’s the best test I’ve ever done,” Zhou said. “I still look at their job careers page, even today, because I’m like, ‘Wow, that just left such a positive impression on me. I would just happily apply with them again.’”

Candidates also want to learn something from the evaluation process. Olivia Ramirez, a job seeker who interviewed for a role at a financial services company, said test assignments have helped her decide whether she wants to pursue the role. When the hiring manager assigned a lengthy and technical writing project, “it definitely made me question whether I was the right fit for the company,” she said. “I wasn’t having the most enjoyable time writing about this topic. It’s a good way to understand what the actual day-to-day grittiness of the work is like.” And even though the assignment was a tough one, Ramirez said she liked having the chance to show the work she’s capable of doing.

Zhou once completed a test project that was much more technical than she imagined the job to be. “That helped me think about, ‘OK, is this job really right for me?’” she said.

How to Improve Interview Test Projects

Frank Hauben is the global VP of product management at technical-interview platform CoderPad. He believes that sound candidate assessments have three characteristics.

First, evaluations should be time-bound. “By time-bound, I don’t mean 40 hours,” he said. “On the order of 30 minutes to two hours is what we find to be a reasonable sweet spot.” Not only do boundaries limit the scope and complexity of the assignment, it helps make the interview process more equitable. As a parent of two young girls, Hauben said there’s no way he has 40 hours to spend on a project, and couldn’t compete with someone who does.

Time boundaries are different from time estimates, and both matter. Employers should assume that applicants will exceed the time estimates attached to these assignments. When applicants need the job, they’ll sink their teeth in. One company told Tori Zhou not to spend more than two hours on the project. A self-described perfectionist, Zhou invested four, and estimates she has spent seven hours on another assessment. Ramirez describes spending upwards of 12 hours on a single take-home project.

Next, instructions should be clear, said Hauben, and applicants should be given the opportunity to ask questions and receive responses about the evaluation.

And finally, evaluations should give candidates the clearest possible picture of what the job is, said Hauben. But they don’t need to represent the entirety of the job. “What would you be walking somebody through on their first day or week? You want to give somebody something that is obviously realistic and relevant, not something out of a textbook or the most complex problem.”

Consider, for example, asking candidates to come up with a solution to a problem you’ve already solved. “You know what the answer is, or what one answer could be,” Hauben said. And when you acknowledge that the problem has already been resolved, applicants don’t have to wonder if their work will be used after they’re ejected from the interview process.

Compensating Applicants for Their Time

Every job seeker who spoke to From Day One said that they want to be compensated for the time they spend on test projects. When they’re sinking multiple hours or days on an assignment, one that could ostensibly be exploited by the employer, they said, payment only feels fair. Many employers don't agree, which has created its own social-media debate. 

Applicants seldom have the luxury of turning down a test project when they really need the job, Miller said. “When you’re seeking employment, you’re really not at liberty to pass anything off. I know that companies take your work and use it. I know that they do that. To not be compensated for it is just validation that your concerns were right.”

Miller, who’s still in the running for the job in college development, said that the hiring team asked about her experience with the test project, but as long as she’s a candidate, she feels that she can’t be completely candid.

Ramirez, who was once compensated for a tough test assignment, said she thinks twice about companies that require unpaid test projects as part of the interview process because, ultimately, the candidate experience reflects the employee experience.

“It would make me think about what their culture is like and what they’ve been implementing to be at the forefront of companies today, in terms of equity in the organization and advocating for their employees and potential employees,” she said. “If it’s paid, then I think that’s a great signal that the company is considering best practices and trying to stand up with the best of the best in the space.”

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.

(Featured photo by Amenic181/iStock by Getty Images)

*Editor’s note: Because she is still interviewing with the organization described here, Beth Miller asked that she not be identified by her real name.