Happy New Year, friends!

In November, I took a break to unplug and spend time with my family. It was deeply needed, and it gave me space to think.

During that time, I reconnected with a few mentees who had recently been laid off. Different roles, same pattern: each of them was asked to complete a skills assessment as part of their interview process.

One of the examples that stopped me in my tracks came from a mentee who was asked to complete a skills assessment estimated at six to seven hours of work, before ever speaking with a recruiter.

What stood out wasn’t just the time commitment, it was how early the assignment appeared in the process, and the complete absence of any mention of feedback once the work was submitted.

Candidates were being asked to invest hours of unpaid work without any indication of what they would receive in return, feedback, context, or even a conversation.

This wasn’t an isolated case. Variations of this same structure showed up again and again in conversations I had with candidates across roles and industries.

This is where the conversation needs to get more honest.

With love and lots of Coffee, ☕

Chrissy

Hiring isn’t just evolving, it’s being rewritten.

More companies are moving away from traditional credentials and toward skills-based hiring, where what you can do matters more than where you went to school or how polished your resume sounds. Degrees are becoming optional, titles are being scrutinized, and instead of trusting narratives, companies want proof.

Enter👉 skill assessments

Across industries, candidates are being evaluated through:

These methods are now showing up across roles, industries, and levels — often earlier than candidates expect.

The logic is simple: Resumes describe potential, skills demonstrate performance.

In theory, this makes hiring more objective and more fair.

Skill assessments require time, energy, focus, and unpaid labor, resources that aren’t evenly distributed across the workforce.

Caregivers, parents, women, and those managing invisible emotional labor are being asked to do extra work just to stay competitive.

A “quick” assignment often means:

And unlike salaried employees, candidates absorb all of the risk.

No pay, no guarantees, no feedback…sometimes not even a response!

During my time supporting a tech team within a larger organization, I often overheard a familiar concern at the executive level:

On the surface, it sounded like a pipeline problem. But as I dug deeper, it became clear the issue wasn’t the absence of qualified women, they existed, they applied, and they advanced partway through the process.

What stood out wasn’t talent, it was process.

As I partnered with engineering leaders running interviews, sat in on debriefs, and worked closely with HR, one pattern became impossible to ignore: the interview process itself was quietly filtering women out, particularly those who were caregivers or parents. This wasn’t a formal diversity study, but the pattern was consistent enough across candidates, interviewers, and debriefs that it became impossible to ignore.

Extended interview cycles, multi-hour take-home assessments, projects that required long, uninterrupted blocks of time, often completed outside standard working hours.

For many women balancing caregiving responsibilities, these requirements weren’t just inconvenient… they were unrealistic.

And this is where the disconnect showed up.

When a process consistently excludes a specific group, we don’t call it “rigorous”, we call it a design flaw.

If this approach isn’t working within a tech team that is actively trying to improve representation, it’s worth asking a harder question:

Why do we assume the same model will work elsewhere?

Because when time is treated as a neutral resource, we ignore the reality that not all candidates have equal access to it. And when access isn’t equal, outcomes won’t be either, regardless of intent.

This isn’t about lowering the bar, it’s about questioning whether the bar is actually measuring what we think it is.

Which brings us back to interview assignments. If the process disproportionately filters out caregivers in a tech team, it’s worth questioning whether it’s actually measuring capability, or simply availability.

Over the past few days, I asked the community how confident they feel when completing interview assignments, the kind that range from quick case studies to multi-hour projects.

The results were telling:

That last number matters.

This isn’t resistance to being evaluated — it’s resistance to unclear expectations, time-intensive work, and one-sided processes.

In the community, a few themes came up repeatedly:

Some shared experiences of multi-hour assessments completed early in the process (sometimes before even speaking with a recruiter) only to be told they wouldn’t be moving forward, with no feedback and no context. When that happens, candidates aren’t just disappointed; they’re questioning whether their time was respected at all.

Others pointed to a better alternative: paid working interviews. Short, scoped, compensated sessions where both sides evaluate fit in real time, followed by conversation, feedback, and a decision. Those experiences felt far more equitable and far more informative than a standalone assignment ever could.

There were also thoughtful counterpoints. A few people shared that traditional interviews don’t always allow them to show their full capabilities, and that when done well, an assignment can be a valuable opportunity to demonstrate real-world skills. The key distinction? Clarity, scope, and intention.

The issue isn’t interview assignments. The issue is how they’re being used.

Candidates are willing (even eager) to show what they can do.
What they’re pushing back on is unpaid labor, vague instructions, and processes that ask for significant effort without context, conversation, or commitment in return.

Clarity isn’t a “nice to have” in hiring anymore. It’s the difference between engaged candidates, and the best ones quietly opting out.

Hiring has changed, but until processes catch up, candidates will continue to pay the price for that shift.

If skill assessments are becoming the new gatekeepers, candidates deserve better tools, not more guesswork.

If you’ve made it this far, you already know the problem: Interview assignments are becoming the gatekeeper, and candidates are expected to figure them out alone.

This workshop is for candidates who want to approach assessments strategically, not reactively.

In this live session, you’ll learn how to:

This isn’t about gaming the system. It’s about protecting your time, your energy, and your leverage in a hiring process that’s changing faster than the rules are being explained.

📅 Starting February 25
Live, practical, and built for real hiring scenarios — not theory.

I’ll be joining a panel with Dapple AI for AI Outlook 2026: More Signal, Less Noise, a candid conversation about what’s actually working (and what isn’t) as AI reshapes how we work.

📅 Jan 22 | ⏰ 2:00 PM EST

For our next Office Hours, we’re welcoming Molly Medvecky, founder of EA Enneagram, for a live session on the Enneagram and how it shows up in our work.

Molly will share a foundational introduction to the Enneagram and practical ways EAs and operators can apply it to communication, stress, boundaries, and day-to-day work dynamics.

Format:

No prep required. No need to know your type.
Just a thoughtful, community-driven conversation focused on self-awareness at work.

🗓️ Date: February 4th 12pm ET
🌐 Free & virtual
⏰ 45 minutes
💬 Cameras optional; coffee mandatory-ish (tea is fine, we guess)

Because self-doubt hits hardest when you’re asked to prove yourself without a roadmap.

Follow our Spotify playlist for inspo! 🎧