The rise of work trials — and the bias risk that comes with them

More employers are running work trials, and the reason is easy to understand.

Resumes have stopped functioning as evidence. Jennifer Dulski, CEO of Rising Team, told Employee Benefit News that her own hiring process was overwhelmed by thousands of bots and that hiring managers frequently cannot tell the difference between a person and an AI. A work trial puts a candidate in front of real work with the people they would work beside.

The case for it is solid. SHRM puts the cost of replacing an employee at 50% to 200% of annual salary, and higher at the executive level. Trials also help candidates who interview poorly and work beautifully. Anyone who has watched a thoughtful, quiet person flounder through a panel interview understands the appeal immediately.

Then, there is the part that gets less airtime, and Dulski raised it herself. A work trial requires a candidate to have time available. Employed candidates largely do not.

Neither do single parents, people caring for aging relatives, or anyone working a second job to stay afloat. When you screen for who can spend a week auditioning, you have quietly built a filter for people with a financial cushion.

That is a genuine bias risk living inside a practice that was designed to reduce bias.

If you are going to use trials, pay for anything longer than a few hours, define what success looks like before the candidate begins, say out loud that finishing the trial is not a job offer, and save them for finalists instead of using them as a screening layer.

If you are the candidate being asked to do one, get the expectations, the compensation, and the decision timeline in writing before you start. A company unwilling to put those things in writing has already told you something.