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Michelle Tran was one of the lucky ones to find a job she enjoyed fresh out of college in 2022. She worked in that digital marketing role for around a year before personal reasons led her to quit.
But when she went to start hunting for her next role last year, she found the job market a lot tougher. A year later, she's still out of work.
Tran has taken to applying for jobs as a job in itself. She put together a schedule where she applies for 30 jobs a month. Much of her time ends up being spent on hourslong work demonstration tests. "It's very time-consuming," she told Business Insider, "but I do try to give myself weekends off if I can."
While she understands that companies want to do these tests to check candidates have the relevant skills, she said these tests sometimes feel like you're giving away "free consultancy." That's especially true when tests involve creating social media plans for their existing clients.
Surprisingly, she has found that some companies are willing to pay for the time spent on these tests.
"It's the respectful thing to do to compensate you for doing this work on a project," she told BI. One agency gave her a $90 gift card for completing a 2-hour hiring test.
Adding that it's a huge green flag for a company, "it gives you a good perspective on how the company might treat you like when you're working with there."
But while candidates appreciate compensation, the choice to offer it remains firmly with employers.
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Job seekers are venting their frustrations online about having to jump through more hiring hoops in the application process.
The hiring landscape is shifting fast. The era of the Great Resignation, when a wave of people quit their jobs to start new ones, has given way to a new era, the "Big Stay," with more people staying in their jobs.
That means fewer jobs for those out of work.
Adding to that, companies have been tightening their purse strings in the face of economic hardship, shifting the power balance back to employers.
"There has been a dramatic shift in the employment market over the past few years," Chris Abbass, founder and CEO of recruitment firm Talentful, previously told Business Insider.
That's why some candidates, like Tran, are pleased — albeit surprised — when employers compensate them for their time spent on these tests.
As power shifts back into employers' hands, they have little incentive to offer these kinds of perks. Tran said she still does hiring tests even when they're not paid, as she doesn't want to close off her options.
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However, some employers find that paying candidates helps them hire the best people and makes the process more fair.
Datapeople, a New York-based company, describes itself as helping companies deliver a "more human hiring experience" through its intelligence platform. And it's practicing what it preaches by compensating candidates for work demonstration tests during the hiring process.
Amit Bhatia, the company's cofounder, told BI that compensation applies to every candidate who has to complete a test, from entry-level candidates to VPs. The amount of compensation isn't dependent on the title but on how much effort they anticipate the task will require.
"In our opinion, this is a requirement for a truly inclusive interview process," he said. For example, some candidates may need to pay for childcare to focus and perform their best on the test.
"Whereas some candidates may have the financial and personal flexibility to invest time to produce a quality work demonstration, others may not, which could place undue stress or harm on their candidacy," Bhatia added.
"Candidates who are normally reticent to invest in a work demonstration are elated to hear they will be compensated," he added.
Despite this, it's not yet a norm across hiring practices, and some experts don't think it'll catch on.
"I think it won't become a norm anytime soon," Carolin Chmielewski, the founder of talent acquisition agency Talent Cove, told BI. "It was always something that candidates were okay to do, but slowly, this has started to change," she added.
But the demand from candidates is still there. Chmielewski said that she's had a few candidates who have dropped out of interviews because the test case demanded too much time.
"I do believe that companies need to think of any kind of compensation if the test is very time-consuming in order not to lose the candidates and have high dropout rates," she said.
