job recruitment assignment

What Every Job Seeker Should Know About Work Assignments During the Interview Process

You’re progressing well through an interview process, and you think you’re close to landing that coveted offer, when the employer says, “One more thing—we have a little homework for you.”

This tactic is used by a lot of companies (especially startups), and with good reason: The hiring manager gets a firsthand look at your approach, creativity, quality, turn-around speed, and communication and presentation style and can gauge how serious you are about the position.

If you really want that job, your instinct will likely be to put your best foot forward and provide the most fabulous project the employer has ever seen. But there’s something else to consider: You may end up putting in many hours of work, creating an awesome deliverable—and at the end of it all, still not getting the job. There’s even a chance that the company will take the ideas you labored over for its own benefit, and you’re left not only without an offer, but without compensation for all that hard work.

It’s happened to me: Once, at the end of a second round interview, a hiring manager asked me for a list of quick-hit ideas on increasing user engagement for his consumer website. I spent almost half a day coming up with a list of 10 great ideas, including many examples from other sites. After I proudly sent over my recommendations, I didn’t hear from the company for over two weeks. When I finally got a response, he thanked me for all my hard work and said that the company decided not to pursue the position at this time due to “internal matters.”

Who knows if this really was the case; but to my surprise, I noticed a handful of my ideas were actually implemented within the next few months on their site. Maybe these were ideas already in motion and my assignment only confirmed what was planned, but I couldn’t help but feel that I had been somewhat “used” and regretted putting so much time and effort into this homework.

While there are times you may want to go to the moon and back for a job , it’s also important to be careful how you approach these homework assignments—especially if you’re investing your time into applying to multiple jobs. Here are some tips on how to handle this tricky situation.

1. Understand General Goals and Expectations

First, it’s important to get a sense of how this assignment will factor into the overall evaluation of your candidacy. Is this the final hurdle before the job offer? (It should be.) How will this be weighed with other elements of your interview? (You should get some positive reinforcement that the company’s very interested and just wants to get a sense of how you work.) How long will the assignment take? (Being asked to spend more than 2-3 hours on an assignment before getting hired is bordering on disrespect.)

Don’t be afraid to ask questions like, “Can you help me understand how this assignment will be evaluated?” “Are you looking more for big-picture ideas, or a detailed look at my recommendations?” “Roughly how much time do you recommend I put into this assignment?” It’ll help you understand what the company is looking for and how much time you’re willing to put forth.

2. Ask for Data

Next, remember that you have every right to ask for information that’ll help you better tackle the assignment and not start from scratch (if you were hired, that’s what you’d obviously do , right?). So, put some onus on the company to provide relevant data. For example, if the company is asking for your ideas on potential partners, ask questions that’ll point you in the right direction, like, “Who are your current partners?” “What types of partners are you currently pursuing?” “What are the key metrics that define a successful partnership?”

And if the company doesn’t provide any more information? Do your best, but also make sure you express where you’ve made assumptions based on lack of information—e.g., “Without knowing what your current metrics for successful partnerships are, I’ve made suggestions for partners that will boost both brand awareness and website traffic. Obviously, if the company has different goals, I would be able to adjust these recommendations.”

And then don’t worry—if the hiring manager doesn’t offer it, he or she will understand that you’re operating under lack of information and history.

3. Outline Main Points, Only Tease the Details

More often than not, the primary reason companies dole out homework is to get a better sense of your thought process, as well as how you structure and convey your thoughts and ideas. There’s not necessarily a “right” answer, nor is there a need to get way down in the weeds.

So, don’t stress about providing a ton of information—just outline the main points (bullets and numbered lists usually work well). You can tease out more details as you’re talking through your assignment in the interview without having to write down your specific plans and fully fleshed out ideas. Remember: You don’t want the hiring manager to have the blueprints for your fabulous ideas—you want him or her to hire you so that you can be the one implement them!

4. If You’re Worried, Get an NDA in Place

Depending on the type of job function and level you’re interviewing for, it may not be a bad idea to request a non-disclosure agreement. If there is any confidential information you do not want shared widely, your assignment involves using data from your current employer, or you just have a nagging concern that the company may steal your best ideas, take a precaution and get a simple mutual NDA executed (many template NDA forms are available online for download). Don’t make it too legally formal—the company may get turned off by this move—just let the hiring manager know you just want to make sure things stay confidential and you’d be more comfortable providing details with a simple NDA in place. If he or she refuses to sign, this may be another warning flag.

Knocking a homework assignment out of the park can be an amazing chance to show you’re the best candidate of the bunch, but you never want to get in a situation where you’re wasting your time or being used for free labor. Follow these guidelines, and you’ll be able to present a great deliverable while making sure you’re spending your time and effort the right way.

Photo of man working courtesy of Shutterstock .

5 Types of Homework Assignments for a Skills-First Hiring Process

CVs and interviews don’t predict job performance, but work assignments can.

It’s really simple; hiring managers need to place competence in context to assess candidates’ technical and interpersonal skills .

If a structured interview process can help flush out candidates with the right attitude and cultural alignment, homework assignments can highlight people with the perfect skillset for the role.

And for a hiring manager, the hiring confidence when selecting between candidates who list the right skills on their resume and those who nail take-home tasks is like night and day.

Curious if work assignments could be a good fit for your company? In this article, we discuss:

• what a homework assignment is all about
• why companies prioritize work assignments over interviews
• how to reassure candidates that work assignments aren’t ‘free work’
• the easiest way to incorporate take-home tasks into your hiring process
• five tips for designing an effective homework assignment

Let’s dive in!

What is a homework assignment?

A homework assignment or an interview project is a task given to a candidate during the interview process that tests whether they have the right skills for a role. Typically these assignments take about an hour or two to complete and have a specific deadline. But they can be more detailed and take up to 5 hours or longer, depending on the role seniority or complexity.

We recommend sticking to a maximum of two hour-projects to keep it fair and reasonable for candidates. As a hiring manager, your main goal is to get a reliable snapshot of a candidate’s technical fit for the job – not to subject applicants to NASA-level testing.

Alternatively, you could swap homework assignments for paid test projects. While many candidates frown upon the idea of completing longer take-home tasks for free (who doesn’t hate free labor?), paid projects are generally accepted as a reasonable alternative. Learn how we leverage paid projects at Toggl Hire.

If a candidate won’t complete an assignment that takes less than 2 hours of their time, likely, they aren’t really interested in the role. So it also doubles as a reliable method to screen out prospective bad hires .

Why do companies ask candidates to complete homework assignments?

Homework assignments help companies get a better idea of a candidate’s strengths and whether they’d be a good match for the role. It’s a bit like shopping online. Seeing a new pair of sneakers you want in a 2D image is great. But getting a fully immersive AR experience really brings the sneakers to life and builds your confidence you’re making the right choice!

These days, many companies prioritize work assignments over interviews , as the typical interview process is outdated. Interviews and CVs alone don’t help the hiring team explore a candidate’s actual abilities. Why? Well, firstly, candidates sometimes exaggerate their qualifications on CVs. Plus, a potential candidate could be great in an interview scenario but terrible at the actual job.

Another reason interviews are passé is that they can open up the hiring team to potential cognitive bias (hiring someone very similar to you). This might seem kind of nice, but in the end, you’ll have less diversity if everyone you hired was a mini-me, right?

Yet, interviews do have an important role to play in the hiring process. But not right in the beginning, necessarily. Shifting the interview portion further down the hiring process steps helps companies focus on quality candidates rather than the search for quality candidates. They could rather confirm the technical fit through skills assessments and then dig deeper during the second interview.

According to HBR, prioritizing homework assignments over interviews can help recruiters better match true competency with the job requirements:

One of us (Jeff) spent several years hiring writers for our firm. He used a scenario-driven writing assignment, administered after a short introductory call, to assess skills. Many publications use writing or editing tests for job candidates, but Jeff approached the task more analytically than most: After receiving the assignment, he conducted a follow-up conversation to understand not just what was on the page, but the candidate’s choices in crafting it. Not only did this give us a sense of how a candidate would perform, but they got a much better sense of the job itself, as we related elements of the task to actual role expectations. By using the same exercise repeatedly, it also built a database of responses over time, a positive feedback loop to better assess the next candidate. Geoff Tuff, a principal at Deloitte Consulting LLP – Harvard Business Review

The real benefits are that work assignments and skills assessments paint a truer picture and can also:

• help identify the best person for the job
• reveal an applicant’s work ethic
• reduce the risk of selecting candidates that have lapsed technical skills (especially with the rapid evolution of technology)
• are easy to deploy at scale – you can narrow down the number of applicants from 500 to 50 to save the hiring team loads of time
• help organizations draw in non-typical but strong candidates that broaden the team’s diversity, equity & inclusion
• reduce the risk and cost of a bad hire

What do candidates gain from completing homework assignments?

Job seekers may not often feel enthusiastic about interview assignments. And we get it. People are busy juggling so many things in their day to day that adding one more can feel overwhelming. But those who look at the bigger picture see it as an opportunity to shine.

Work assignments are a foolproof way for job seekers to demonstrate their skills and expertise . And if candidates happen to have any gaps in their experience, they can still demonstrate their aptitude through an online assignment.

It’s also an easy way for candidates to show they’re truly interested in the position and the employer and stand out from the crowd of other applicants.

Not only do these task projects give them a peek into their potential day-to-day responsibilities , but it’s also a window into whether the role is a good fit for them in the long run .

If they find the task takes too long or that the topic or sector is dryer than toast – they should put their sights elsewhere. But if it’s all systems go – then they’ve already got a head start on producing what’s needed for the role.

5 Types of take-home interview assignments

Take-home interview assignments are a popular choice for assessing technical and creative candidates. But now companies are seeing the benefits for other roles too.

Three things that hiring managers should consider for all these types of interview assignments:

• Letting candidates know about the test beforehand. That way, they’re not surprised and feel they’re starting off on the wrong foot.
• Automating everything they can in the testing process, so they don’t leave candidates high and dry in between lengthy hiring phases.
• Using the data they gain from these tests and candidate feedback to update their hiring process.

And now, onto the examples of homework assignments.

#1 Basic skills screening

Quick skills screening tests as a pre-qualifying step can help reduce the volume of applications without any manual effort. That means no manual resume screening or individual candidate feedback.

As applicants get instant feedback via skills test results (they either pass the required score threshold and move on or stop there), recruiters and hiring managers benefit in three major ways: 1) they save hours of their time by automating CV screening; 2) they can easily identify qualified applicants who should move to the interview stage; 3) they ensure a great candidate experience with modern skills-based hiring practices.

Good practices:

Keeping the tests short and sweet to respect candidates’ time and effort. We’d recommend 15 or 20-minute assessments at the kickoff. However, it’s important to ensure the tests are hard, so they actually act like a quality filter for your candidate pipeline.

Bad practices:

Focusing too much on theoretical, bookish questions that make the test feel like a school exam can harm your test completion rate and prevent great candidates from submitting their applications. Additionally, making the screening tests too long or too intrusive (e.g., taking snapshots through the computer camera) can create an unnecessary barrier and reduce your chances of sourcing top-quality people.

#2 Pre or post-interview coding challenges

While a job interview can help hiring managers assess interpersonal skills, such as communication , teamwork, or motivation, it’s not the best medium for evaluating hard skills . Online coding tests help the hiring team select technically capable developers that can contribute to the business.

A recruiter would typically source candidates with the right programming languages listed on their profile or resume. And then, it’s the hiring manager’s responsibility to work out if the applicant has what it takes to write good code. Easier said than done!

That’s why a coding assessment as a homework assignment has become the norm in tech hiring, and most developers are willing to take them on.

Remember, though; candidates don’t owe you free work. Your approach to designing a coding test will determine whether people continue in the hiring process or drop off.

First of all, decide what you want to assess and why. If you’re hoping to ascertain a candidate’s troubleshooting and problem-solving skills, time-boxing the assignment wouldn’t work to your advantage. The candidate can always use the ‘lack of time’ as an excuse for lower-quality work.

Another thing to remember is to set the test at the right skill level, depending on whether it’s a junior, intermediate or advanced role.

Testing skills that are nice to have or don’t match the role is a common mistake. Focusing on too many topics requires candidates to switch context from question to question – which is often confusing and tiring in such a short span of time.

Another issue employers run into is using clunky testing software that candidates need to figure out on the fly. If it takes effort to learn the platform or the platform doesn’t have the required features, developers will have to pay the price.

#3 Portfolio reviews and spec work during the job interview process

Ask any creative about their opinion on spec work, and you’ll likely hear that it sucks. And there are good reasons for graphic designers, writers, and other creatives to hate this kind of work – why should they commit to the project without any promise of payment?

If you’re hiring a professional from the creative field, we highly recommend starting with a live portfolio review . That’s when a candidate can take the interviewer through specific portfolio examples and share the backstory and lessons learned from that project. With creative roles, it’s often the unique style and quirks alongside the technical skills that can help determine the best person for the job.

However, sometimes paid spec work is a much fairer and more accurate way of getting insight into a candidate’s skillset. For tasks that require a highly personalized approach or solution, going the freelance gig route can yield better results.

Inform candidates ahead of time that you’d like to review their portfolio during a live interview. This will give them time to prepare and update their work samples. Ask questions that relate to their portfolio, even if the current samples don’t match your brief – you want to understand their creative process and practices. For paid spec work, make time to discuss the brief in person and agree on a check-in schedule to ensure work progresses in the right direction.

Springing this on the candidate without any warning and expecting the work to be delivered on a short deadline is a questionable move. Even if you’re opting for paid spec work, bear in mind these tasks are often completed in a vacuum and should be evaluated through a less critical lens. And finally, the not-so-secret secret: most creatives are terrible at maintaining their portfolios up-to-date. Giving them the heads-up will increase your chances of selecting the right talent.

#4 Time-boxed homework assignments that go in-depth to evaluate candidates’ competence

This type of home assignment can take many forms – from asking a marketing professional to write a press release for a product launch that already happened to requesting a business analyst to extract key insights from a dataset.

To ensure it’s not perceived as free work, time-boxed assessment projects often focus on real-world business problems that have been solved internally. This way, you can benchmark candidates’ work against your internal quality standard and reassure candidates of your intentions. The sole purpose of interview assignments is to confirm candidates’ technical fit in an efficient manner.

Keep the topic or assignment relevant to the role, and limit the necessary time it’ll take to complete to about 2-3 hours. Remember that the clarity of your brief will largely determine the quality of the deliverables, so be specific about your expectations.

Expecting someone to take 5-10 hours out of their busy schedule for an unpaid assignment is unrealistic.

#5 Paid projects during the interview process

Interviewing is exhausting for both the candidate and the interviewer. So it’s unsurprising that paid interview assignments have been gaining in popularity in recent years.

As a hiring manager, would you rather spend hours of your time interviewing candidates to filter out the bad apples or use the job interview as a way to get to know potential hires?

Homework assignments are exactly that – a simple, efficient method for spotting A-level candidates with the right skills for the job.

As you confirm the technical fit before the interview, both parties can focus on aligning on other important factors, such as the organizational fit , team culture, and manager expectations.

However, many employers have realized that the sentiment around homework assignments has shifted from acceptable to immoral, as applicants began calling assignments ‘free work’. Research shows that drop-off rates increased when candidates were asked to complete a take-home assignment.

Enter paid homework projects.

The perfect combo of practical competency assessment and paid work. Since the candidate receives compensation for their time, these types of assignments can be longer and more complex.

Anything from analyzing the growth funnel to tackling a programming challenge to designing an effective product onboarding experience can serve as a homework assignment idea.

What’s important to note is that these kinds of work assignments allow employers to get a glimpse into a candidate’s work ethic , thinking process, time management, and many other skills that are impossible to assess during the interview process.

If you’re paying for their time, treat them like consultants: provide access to important information, answer their questions and connect them with the right people internally. And be sure to outline the recruitment process at the very start; not everyone will happily take on a bigger commitment project, even when it’s paid.

As a hiring manager, stay in touch throughout the recruitment process to lay the foundations for a good working relationship. Provide clear requirements and timelines to reduce stress, and don’t forget about fair compensation – going below the market rate is disrespectful.

A great way to cause unnecessary stress is to ask candidates to present to a large audience or high-level execs they would never work with on a day-to-day basis.

Be sure to provide a clear agenda for the presentation call ahead of time and prep your interview panel for follow-up questions.

The work assignments and interview process windup

Work assignments are a good thing for companies and candidates alike. The result is like the difference between speed dating and a real dinner and a first date. Yes, they’re both exciting, but in the case of hiring, you need to hire someone that can demonstrate they have the right skills. The cost of hiring the wrong candidate is just too high for companies.

To find truly interested candidates, who have the right aptitude, introduce your team to the benefits of work assignments. You’ll save both parties loads of time and the hassle of a dragged-out interview process and other redundant hiring steps.

If you’re ready to explore how to transform your business’ hiring process from a time-consuming to a slick candidate pipeline, we leave you with five simple tips on designing an effective homework assignment.

5 simple tips for designing a great homework assignment:

• Replace resume screening with basic skills screening. Start the sifting process early with a quick skills screening test . This will weed out the bad eggs and leave you with a selection of good potential candidates.
• Make your assignment brief and easy to understand, and explain the key outputs you expect.
• Match the level of the homework assignment to the level of the role. Unrealistic tasks will only scare people off.
• Don’t request candidates to solve super-specific business problems. Make the assignment generalized, not based on a super specific problem your business is experiencing.
• Give the candidate a chance to show and tell. That way, you get insight into their thought process, presentation skills, and even emotional intelligence when their viewpoint is challenged.

Have a peek at our Test Library for more assignment ideas, and good luck!

Juste loves investigating through writing. A copywriter by trade, she spent the last ten years in startups, telling stories and building marketing teams. She works at Toggl Hire and writes about how businesses can recruit really great people.

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How to develop a recruitment plan

A recruitment plan is a strategic blueprint for hiring, outlining timelines, processes, and other elements to enhance efficiency. It guides recruiters and HR professionals throughout the hiring process, ensuring a streamlined approach to sourcing, interviewing, and onboarding candidates.

Nikoletta holds an MSc in HR management and has written extensively about all things HR and recruiting.

A successful recruitment plan is more than just numbers. Vacancies and recruiting budgets form the basis of recruitment plans, but employing good hiring practices can elevate them.

How to create a recruitment plan:

Revise your job descriptions.

Job duties can change over time. Talk to team leaders and ask them how their roles, and their team members’ roles, have changed. If your sales team now performs account management, update their job descriptions.

If you don’t have formal job descriptions yet, consider conducting a job analysis – a process to determine a job’s duties and requirements. Arrange interviews with staff to discuss their roles and responsibilities. You can also use job description templates , a convenient alternative to conducting a job analysis.

Conduct a skills gap analysis

Conducting a skills gap analysis is a systematic way to analyze your staff’s current skill level and identify skills you want in the future.

To conduct a skills gap analysis:

• Identify skills you’ll need in the future.
• Assess skills your company has already.
• Compare current with desired skills and plan to fill the gaps.

Identify future recruiting needs by talking to senior management and team leaders to understand existing skill levels. Find out how they plan to hit next year’s goals. Complement their insights with recent performance reviews or employee surveys. Rate each skill you’re looking for on a scale (most commonly a three- or five-point one.)

Prioritize any skills gaps you discover. You can also address gaps by creating training plans for your employees. When skills gaps are too big, consider hiring new people to fill them.

Align your hiring team

With Workable’s hiring plan, you’ll move out of the spreadsheets and into one centralized workspace, where info is always current and next steps are always clear.

Try our hiring plans

Visualize your hiring activity

A skills gap analysis will provide a general idea of how many new hires you’ll need to cover gaps, but there are other ways to predict hiring needs. You can use quantitative methods to forecast future hires in your recruitment plan . For example, companies may set daily sales targets to hit their revenue goals. They can use productivity metrics to find out if their current number of employees can achieve those goals. If not, they can calculate how many more people they need to hire.

Insight from hiring managers can also give you a good estimate of the number of people you need to hire. Schedule meetings with hiring managers to discuss your hiring plan and their staffing needs. Use the information to create a hiring plan spreadsheet with the number of expected new hires per quarter or month. Here’s an example:

Revamp your hiring process:

Review your past recruitment plans and hiring habits and ask yourself:

• Did hiring teams communicate well?
• Did hiring processes meet hiring managers’ requirements?
• How did new hires perform in their probationary periods?
• What was the new-hire turnover rate (new hires who left in their first three months)?
• Were there any legal issues with hiring processes or candidate experiences ? (e.g. consider  illegal interview questions  and their legal alternatives)
• Are any changes needed to your recruitment or hiring policy?

Answers to these questions will inform the way you hire and how much you’ll spend on doing it efficiently. For example, if you find that your hiring teams had problems communicating through email, you could opt for a more user-friendly hiring tool . If managers find that new hires lack some of the skills they expect, explore investing in pre-employment testing .

An improved hiring process begins with effective sourcing. Download our complete sourcing guide for free.

Create a hiring budget

If you have already planned your hiring activity, calculate your cost-per-hire  and recruiting yield ratio . Add all internal (for example,  referral program incentives and recruiter salaries) and external recruiting costs (for example, agency, job posting and background check fees) and divide the sum by the number of new hires. As part of your personnel budgeting process , forecast the amount you’ll pay to your future employees in personnel costs (salaries, benefits and fully burdened costs .)

Think in terms of hiring teams

Your hiring process shouldn’t just be efficient for each individual hire. It should build an effective team culture that lasts. Here’s how you can attract – and retain – better teams:

• Set diversity targets . Diverse teams perform better than their homogenous counterparts. Incorporate diversity goals into your hiring process and explore partnerships with organizations like Society of Women Engineers  and Ascend , a Pan-Asian organization for business professionals in North America.
• Train interviewers . Even experienced interviewers can be biased. Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) training can help interviewers follow legal guidelines. Vendors like Interview EDGE and The Lou Adler Group can help interviewers develop their skills. HR can also organize in-house training sessions.
• Use processes that reduce biases . Biases are often unconscious. Eliminating them isn’t easy, but by tweaking your processes, you can reduce them. Consider using  blind hiring  and  structured interview  techniques to reduce hiring biases.

Creating a hiring plan is an opportunity to power up your recruiting and rethink the way you hire. If you aim to hire more objectively and reduce biases, you will build more productive teams and foster a more inclusive company culture.

Learn how you can boost your hiring plan with Workable !

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When Hiring, Prioritize Assignments Over Interviews

• Geoff Tuff,
• Steve Goldbach,
• Jeff Johnson

Small projects can help ensure you’re hiring for skills — not just connection.

Companies over-rely on interviews when hiring, which has been shown to be a poor predictor of future performance and introduces opportunities for bias. As an alternative, try giving candidates who make it past an initial screening test a small test of the primary skill the job requires. For instance, ask a coder to solve a small coding project. This “minimally viable demonstration of competence,” and a follow-up discussion that debriefs the exercise, can be a powerful tool for moving beyond the resume to find qualified candidates that hiring bots might have passed over.

As a hiring manager, you want to bring on the “best” person for a job (whatever that means for the given role), but how do you know who’s right?

• GT Geoff Tuff is a principal and leads Deloitte’s sustainability work in U.S. energy and industrials. He is co-author of the bestselling books Detonate (2018) and Provoke (2021 ).
• SG Steve Goldbach a principal and leads Deloitte’s Sustainability practice in the US. He is a co-author of the books Detonate (2018) and Provoke (2021).
• JJ Jeff Johnson is a managing director at Deloitte Consulting LLP who coaches leaders through sales and relationship-building with a focus on human connection, insight, and the art of communication.

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5 Ways to Manage a Job Reassignment

Instead of laying people off, organizations are increasingly giving them new job assignments. How to manage what can be a jarring professional change.

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U.S. companies announced 42% fewer layoffs in July than in June, and 8% fewer cuts than in July of 2022. The underlying reason is unexpected, however: while companies are continuing to eliminate jobs, they’re often reassigning workers to new roles instead of laying them off. Experts believe this trend could continue.

“Chances are, these are the types of changes we can expect to see over time, whether it’s due to new technology, like AI, or economic trends,” says Korn Ferry Advance coach Frances Weir .

While it can be difficult for employees to suddenly step into a new role and work with a new manager and team, experts say reassignment can have an upside. It offers employees an opportunity to learn new skills and bolster their résumé. For instance, if you’re moved onto a team that is underresourced and needs help, there’s an opportunity for you to make notable contributions that could earn you recognition, says Mark Royal , a senior client partner for Korn Ferry Advisory.

Since a reassignment can potentially be advantageous, it’s worth considering what steps to take to help you adjust. Here are five ways to adapt to a job reassignment.

Manage your emotions.

Reassignments are often unexpected, so it’s important to take a step back from your emotions. It’s normal to feel surprise, anger, or a loss of control, Royal says. But making an immediate, emotional decision—like quitting immediately—could wind up being detrimental to your long-term career.

Be diplomatic with your manager and get ready for the new assignment. At the same time, do some self-reflection. “Understand why you feel this way, and know that if you choose to stay, it doesn’t have to be forever,” Weir says.

Treat it like a new job.

As with any new position, making a good impression during your first 90 days is important, says Alyson Federico, a career coach at Korn Ferry Advance. “No matter how familiar you already are with the team or your new manager, don’t make assumptions that you know what’s going on or what you’re supposed to do,” she says.

Remember that your relationship with these colleagues will evolve. Ask questions to understand expectations about deliverables and responsibilities, how the team communicates, and how you fit into the group, Federico says. Make sure you have a clear sense of how your new team defines success.

Determine the reassignment’s length.

“Is this an open-ended shift, or has it been presented as a short-term assignment with some expectation of other opportunities down the road?” Royal says.

Ask your manager whether there will be a probationary period. Determine how much grace you will get before you’re expected to be a full contributor. Ask if there’s an onboarding process to help you get up to speed.

Stay optimistic.

Your new role and new department might provide an opportunity to build additional skills for your résumé and provide future career options. “You might stumble into something you’re really good at that you were previously unaware of, or perhaps land on a team you really enjoy working with, or discover a new career interest,” says Tiffinee Swanson , a Korn Ferry Advance career coach.

Remind yourself that even though your old role was eliminated, your company decided to keep you. That is a strong signal that your organization values you and your work, Royal says.

Consider the role’s fit.

Even if the role seems to be a poor fit for your skills, you might consider staying if you can see a career path within the company where the fit might be better, Royal says.

Give it some time, experts say. However, if it continues to be a struggle, it’s OK to leave, especially if you have another job offer, you’re offered a severance package, or you’re burned out and don’t have energy to make a change to a reassigned role.

“The best insurance against job loss, or ending up in a position you don’t like, is consistent networking, keeping your résumé and LinkedIn profile up-to-date, and staying abreast of trends in your industry,” says Val Olson , a career coach at Korn Ferry Advance. 

For more expert career advice, connect with a career coach at  Korn Ferry Advance .

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The assignment: Build AI tools for journalists – and make ethics job one

A recent poynter summit on ai, ethics and journalism challenged leaders to dream big and solve ethical challenges.

Imagine you had virtually unlimited money, time and resources to develop an AI technology that would be useful to journalists.

What would you dream, pitch and design?

And how would you make sure your idea was journalistically ethical?

That was the scenario posed to about 50 AI thinkers and journalists at Poynter’s recent invitation-only Summit on AI, Ethics & Journalism . 

The summit drew together news editors, futurists and product leaders June 11-12 in St. Petersburg, Florida. As part of the event, Poynter partnered with Hacks/Hackers , to ask groups attendees to  brainstorm ethically considered AI tools that they would create for journalists if they had practically unlimited time and resources.

SEE POYNTER’S AI WORK: One stop for journalist resources, ethics guidelines and more.

Event organizer Kelly McBride , senior vice president and chair of the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership at Poynter, said the hackathon was born out of Poynter’s desire to help journalists flex their intellectual muscles as they consider AI’s ethical implications.

“We wanted to encourage journalists to start thinking of ways to deploy AI in their work that would both honor our ethical traditions and address the concerns of news consumers,” she said.

Alex Mahadevan , director of Poynter’s digital media literacy project MediaWise , covers the use of generative AI models in journalism and their potential to spread misinformation.

“I thought a hackathon would be a great way to speed-run through the thorny ethics issues that’ll come up as newsrooms start incorporating generative AI in the newsroom,” he said. “The goal wasn’t necessarily to create the perfect journalism AI product, but to identify areas where we need to be careful to respond to audience fears about trust, security and ethics behind artificial intelligence.”

Paul Cheung, with Hacks/Hackers, talks to participants at Poynter’s Summit on AI, Ethics and Journalism about how the day-long hackathon to create ethically considered AI journalism products will work. Alex Smyntyna/Poynter.

The hackathon led to six imagined technologies, which ranged from apps to websites to software. All the theoretical inventions sought to help people, answer questions and improve the quality of life for news audiences. While the exercise was theoretical, one group is actually taking steps to try to pursue and get funding for its idea, an AI-powered community calendar. 

As the working groups conceptualized their visions, they identified plenty of ethical considerations. Here’s what some of them came up with, and what they learned through this exercise.

Just because it’s AI doesn’t mean it’s not time-consuming

PolitiFact editor-in-chief Katie Sanders helped conceptualize a tool that would serve as a guide to local elections.

Vote Buddy was meant to be a local news product , which required detailed information about precincts and candidates and their positions. Seemingly endless details stacked up as her team considered the experiment, she said, which called for more and more journalistic firepower.

Her team noted almost immediately that “the ethical concerns were abundant.”

They started by asking hard questions about use and users. Sanders said it was important to understand exactly what the team wanted to create, consider the problems it would solve for users, and make sure there was an actual need; and if audience members/users would be comfortable with the means by which the AI tool provided the information. 

“As we started to tease out what this service could be, we aso realized how much human manpower would be needed to pull it off and maintain it,” she said. “The experience showed me that your product is only as good as the amount of time and energy that you set aside for the project.”

Just because it’s an AI product, she said, doesn’t mean it won’t eat up resources, especially when it comes to testing and rooting out any and all inaccuracies. 

“Hallucinations around something as serious as someone’s vote are just unacceptable,” she said. “I felt better about having been through the experience, roleplaying what it would take.”

Help journalists figure out an AI entry point

Mitesh Vashee , Houston Landing’s chief product and technology officer, said that many journalists are simply afraid of AI, which creates a barrier to journalists learning how to use it at all — especially ethically. 

He said it’s helpful for journalists to start their journey toward ethical AI use by playing around with AI tools and discovering practical  uses for it in their day-to-day work. 

That way, “It’s not just this big, vague, nebulous idea,” he said, “but it’s a real-world application that helps me in my day. What’s the doorway that we can open into this world?”

His group conceptualized Living Story , a “public-facing widget that appears at the article level, which allows readers to interact with the story by asking questions.”

Vashee said that journalists’ fear that AI would replace them has been front and center in many of his conversations. 

“We’ve made it clear at Houston Landing that we won’t publish a single word that’s generated by AI — it’s all journalism,” he said. “It’s written by our journalists, edited by our editors, etc. …That being said, the editorial process can get more efficient.” 

He said that as newsrooms look to implement new technology to help with efficiency, more work needs to be done to define roles. 

“What is truly a journalist’s job? What is an editor’s job? And what is a technology job? I don’t know what that full answer looks like today, but that’s what we will be working through.”

Don’t wait to consider potential harm

One hackathon group identified less with workaday journalism and more with theoretical issues adjacent to journalism.

“(Our group was) mostly educators and people in the journalism space, more so than current working journalists,” said Erica Perel , director of the Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media at the University of North Carolina. “The product we came up with dealt with bias, trust and polarization.”

The Family Plan was a concept that helped people understand what news media their loved ones were consuming, and suggested ways to talk about disparate viewpoints without judgment or persuasion.

Their biggest ethical concerns centered on privacy and data security.

“How would we communicate these privacy and security concerns? How would we build consent and transparency into the product from the very beginning?,” she said. “And, how could we not wait until the end to be like, ‘Oh yeah, this could be harmful to people. Let’s figure out how to mitigate that.’”

Consider your journalist role and its boundaries

Members of the hackathon team that created an AI product called CityLens explain their idea to a panel of judges: (seated, l-r) Tony Elkins, Poynter faculty; Phoebe Connelly, The Washington Post; and Jay Dixit, OpenAI. Credit: Alex Smyntyna/Poynter.

The hackathon team behind CityLens envisioned it as a free, browser-based tool that would use interactive technology to help users learn about and act on their local environment.

Smartphone cameras would capture a local image and then users could enter questions or concerns, which theoretically would lead them to useful information, including, “how to report a problem to the right entity, whether a public project is in the works at that location, and what journalists have already reported,” according to the team’s slides.

It would also offer an email template for reporting concerns like dangerous intersections, unsanitary restaurants, code violations,  malfunctioning traffic devices, etc.

“I really liked the audience focus,” said Darla Cameron, interim chief product officer at The Texas Tribune. “The framing of the whole event was, how do these tools impact our audiences? That is something that we haven’t thought enough about, frankly.”

Cameron said for their group, the ethical concerns involved boundaries and the role of journalists. 

She said that several of the groups grappled with questions about the lines between journalistic creation of data and the tech companies’ collection of personal data. 

“How can journalism build systems that customize information for our audiences without crossing that line?” she asked, noting that there was also a concern about journalists being too involved. “By making a tool that people can use to potentially interface with city government … are we injecting ourselves as a middleman where we don’t have to be?”

Think about personal data collection and storage

Omni is “a personalized news platform that delivers the most relevant and engaging content tailored to your preferences and lifestyle,” according to the presentation of the group that created it.

Adriana Lacy , an award-winning journalist and founder of an eponymous consulting firm, explained that the group started with some nerves about their tech savvy.

However, they quickly found their footing — and ethical concerns. It became obvious that for Omni to work, its inventors would have to contend with the ethical issues surrounding personal data collection, she said.

“Our goal was figuring out how can we take information … and turn it into various modes of communication, whether that’s a podcast for people who like to listen to things, a video for people who like to watch video, a story for people who prefer to read,” Lacy said. “Basically, compiling information into something that’s super personalized.”

Much of the information they would need to gather was essentially first-party data.

“We had some conversations about how we could ethically get readers to opt into this amount of data collection and we could be compliant in that area,” Lacy said. “We also discussed how we could safely and securely store so much data.”

Their other big ethical concern was figuring out how they could integrate the journalistic process into the project.

“So much of our idea was taking reporters’ writing, video and audio and turning that into a quick push alert, a social media video, a podcast, an audio alert for your Alexa or Google Home — anywhere you choose to be updated,” she said. “The question remains: How can we apply our journalistic ethics and process into all these different types of media?” 

Some work didn’t stop at the hackathon

One team is even looking to launch a real product based on its session at Poynter.

Dean Miller, managing editor of LeadStories.com, said his team of four focused on “the community-building magic of granular local newsroom-based calendars.”

He said their idea, Calindrical , would bring real value to busy families and much-needed time to newsrooms, so the group has bought specific URLs and is working on paperwork to make the idea a reality. 

“Our goal is a near-zero interface,” he said. “Think Mom driving (her) son to soccer, calling or texting to ask when (her) daughter’s drumline show is tonight, and where, and getting the info immediately and sending the info to Grandma and Dad.”

Miller said the group proposes to use AI to both collect event information and to “assiduously” reach out to organizers to verify.

He said Poynter’s focus on AI ethics was helpful and necessary.

“(The) hackathon process was an early and quick way to surface bad assumptions,” Miller said. “We were spurred to focus our thinking on privacy protection, data security, user power and how to stave off the predations of Silicon Valley’s incumbents.”

Poynter as incubator for AI ideas

Participants at Poynter’s Summit on AI, Ethics and Journalism, along with leaders from Hacks/Hackers, study sticky notes with ideas they might want to develop as part of the event’s hackathon. Credit: Alex Smyntyna/Poynter.

The summit was led by McBride , one of the country’s leading voices on media ethics;  Mahadevan , who covers the use of generative AI models in journalism and their potential to spread misinformation; and Tony Elkins , a Poynter faculty member who has been studying AI’s use in visual journalism. 

Partner Hacks/Hackers is an international grassroots journalism organization whose mission is to “create a network of journalists (‘hacks’) and technologists (‘hackers’) who rethink the future of news and information.”

The goal was to challenge those in attendance to think about AI concepts beyond traditional applications like transcriptions, translations or content automation.

Mahadevan said, “I thought it went great. I was worried people would default to the basic headline writing, transcribing and summarizing popular in generative AI use. But we saw some incredibly creative ideas. I think this really positions Poynter as an incubator of what I’m calling ethically sourced AI products.”

The summit took place following Poynter’s release of its AI Ethics Guidebook , and organizers expect to release a research paper from the symposium in the near future.

Elkins said, “As generative AI development and usage starts to intersect more with journalism, it’s important that Poynter facilitates the discussion between journalists and technologists on ethical frameworks for its use. It’s imperative we have meaningful discussion on the ramifications these models will have on our industry and our customers.”

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As CNN reorganizes under CEO Mark Thompson, 100 staffers (or about 3% of CNN’s workforce) will lose their jobs

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The answer: Employing local journalists and focusing on solutions and specifics, according to a news organization called Global Press

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Air Force increases number of ‘extremely demanding’ jobs receiving bonus pay

U.S. Air Force pararescuemen from the 83rd Expeditionary Rescue Squadron secure the landing area after being lowered from a HH-60 Pave Hawk during a November 2012 mission in Afghanistan. (Jonathan Snyder/U.S. Air Force)

More job specialties considered “extremely demanding” by the Air Force and Space Force will be eligible starting in October for special duty assignment pay, and more of it.

The Air Force approved 78 enlisted job specialties, an increase of eight over this year, for special duty assignment pay, or SDAP, in fiscal year 2025, which starts Oct. 1, according to an Air Force news release June 24.

Guardians working in 22 different job specialties will receive the pay bump, the release said.

The Air Force is expanding the eligible career fields partly as an incentive tool, Air Force spokeswoman Lt. Col. Erika Yepsen told Stars and Stripes by email on June 28.

“SDAP is used to encourage enlisted members to qualify for and volunteer to serve in, or remain in, designated positions with duties that are extremely difficult, or carry an unusual degree of responsibility, when compared to typical jobs of members of the same grade level,” she said.

Eligible airmen and guardians may receive a range of SDAP from $75 per month to $450 per month, Yepsen said.

The Air Force in March listed basic military training instructors, combat controllers, pararescue operators, command chief master sergeants and first sergeants as some of the positions eligible this year for the extra pay.

The added pay incentive recognizes enlisted personnel for duties that require demanding personal effort to ensure successful mission accomplishment, Yepsen said.

Those duties also require “a greater degree of responsibility or difficulty” beyond what is normally expected for an airman’s grade and experience, she said. These duties also require special qualifications, rigorous screening or special schooling, she said.

The Air Force has also lengthened its SDAP review period from every year to every four years, according to the release.

The change is intended to stabilize individual airmen and guardians’ budgets and the Air Force’s own budget when it projects its annual costs, according to the release.

The Air Force expects the number of airmen receiving SDAP will decline along with the amount paid out, according to its fiscal year 2025 budget estimate.

The service estimates 30,134 personnel will receive SDAP in fiscal 2025 for a total of $91.2 million. The service in the current fiscal year budgeted $95.2 million in SDAP pay for 30,904 personnel.

This year, the Air Forces “focused on identifying personnel in extremely demanding positions with unusually challenging responsibilities using a defendable scoring methodology and made decisions agnostic of budgetary funding constraints,” the release states.

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More From Forbes

How ai is changing the teaching profession forever.

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PRODUCTION - 26 July 2023, Baden-Württemberg, Karlsruhe: A student at a high school sits in front of ... [+] a laptop and uses an AI tool. A class at Lessing Gymnasium used artificial intelligence to work on Büchner's drama fragment "Woyzeck". Students worked together with the AI on tasks related to the text. Photo: Philipp von Ditfurth/dpa (Photo by Philipp von Ditfurth/picture alliance via Getty Images)

By Lisa Chau

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer a niche technology reserved for specific high level functions and industries — it has quickly evolved into a transformative force in homes, offices, and classrooms.

While the technology is transformative, its impact hasn’t been uniformly positive. For example, teachers are seeing students take advantage of AI to cheat on assignments. It makes their jobs easier. With AI, cheaters never prosper.

“Students think that educators won't detect it. Our English teachers run any suspicious work through software that detects the use of AI, but honestly it is usually obvious to teachers,” said Stephen Whiteley, a recently retired York Suburban High School science teacher who taught for 34 years.

“The biggest risk is that some students will believe they will never have to have an original thought… AI might help, but [it] can't substitute for true problem solving.”

It’s not all bleak. AI is revolutionizing how teachers address the diverse learning needs and paces of individual students. Educators can leverage AI to facilitate personalized learning by way of intelligent tutoring systems and platforms that analyze students' strengths, weaknesses, and learning styles. The platforms then tailor and pace content to suit each individual student.

Differentiated instruction is crucial for catering to diverse student needs, especially in classrooms with students of varying abilities. AI algorithms are already used to adapt math and reading lessons in real-time to ensure that every student receives an appropriate level of support and challenge. Ideally, such data-driven approaches allow for more effective and inclusive teaching practices by improving student engagement and achievement while helping educators identify and address learning gaps more effectively.

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TOPSHOT - Banners of US artificial intelligence company OpenAI fly near an installation depicting ... [+] the legendary "Trojan horse" built entirely out of microelectronic circuit boards and other computer components, outside at the campus of Tel Aviv University in Tel Aviv on June 5, 2023. (Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP) (Photo by JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images)

“One way in which AI should be incorporated into the classroom is through a beginning ‘dialogue’ between the student and the application,” said Professor Dr. Daniel Perrone, an adjunct professor of English at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. “Although AI may be able to provide a substantive ‘answer’ to a composition or literature question, the student can use the application's initial response to build on it with the student's own research and explanation to add a humanistic touch to the response — and to fill in any blanks.”

Tech leaders have warned that critical thinking skills will become essential in the workplace because AI will handle mundane and administrative tasks. Indeed, part of the appeal of AI is that it can eliminate or severely reduce rigamarole.

“You know what the biggest problem with pushing all-things-AI is? Wrong direction,” author Joanna Maciejewska wrote on X. “I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes,”. Maciejewska’s post has garnered more than 3 million views and over 24 thousand reposts.

Because of this powerful appeal, teachers must be intentional in using these new tools to bolster education and outcomes in the classroom rather than relying on them as shortcuts.

Alice Keeler is a 25-year veteran math teacher with a masters degree in educational media design and technology. She helps teachers effectively integrate student-centered technology in the classroom.

“We are only starting to scratch the surface of AI in education,” Keeler said.

“Hopefully, AI will let us see that getting the right answer or regurgitating facts isn't as important anymore. Even students who struggle with grammar or writing a letter can be successful in this new world if they can utilize generative AI,” she said.

Unfortunately, Keeler has been witnessing the opposite.

“Many math programs and other tools have thrust upon students terrible videos and low-level questions, which are neither engaging nor a good use of technology,” she said. “I see a tendency with AI to double down on this, making worksheets faster or using robots as tutors. Is this really an improvement? AI should be used to make schools more flexible, more humanizing, and to allow for more interactions with people. It should enable students to engage in meaningful, creative tasks that teach critical thinking, so we aren't trying to compete with robots but rather become the best human beings we can be.”

So, it is necessary now to further build and navigate the technology in such a way that it enhances our lives rather than detract from it. AI technologies must be steered in such a way that it significantly improves educational outcomes and workforce readiness. To do so, it is crucial that we address challenges related to access, data privacy, and teacher training to ensure the equitable and ethical implementation of AI in education.

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Understanding the resurgence of jobs in America's 'left behind' counties

Tonya Mosley

Understanding The Resurgence of Jobs In America's 'Left Behind' Counties

David Madland of the Center for American Progress says new, “good” jobs are on the rise, but many of the workers don’t realize it’s a result of Biden’s new industrial policies.

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U.S. Job Growth Extends Streak, but Signs of Concern Emerge

A gain of 206,000 in June exceeded forecasts. Hiring was concentrated in a few parts of the economy, however, and unemployment rose to 4.1 percent.

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+206,000 jobs in June

By Talmon Joseph Smith

Halfway through the year, and four years removed from the downturn set off by the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. job engine is still cruising — even if it shows increased signs of downshifting.

Employers delivered another solid month of hiring in June, the Labor Department reported on Friday, adding 206,000 jobs in the 42nd consecutive month of job growth.

At the same time, the unemployment rate ticked up one-tenth of a point to 4.1 percent, up from 4 percent and surpassing 4 percent for the first time since November 2021.

The gain in jobs was slightly greater than most analysts had forecast. But totals for the two previous months were revised downward, and the uptick in unemployment was unexpected. That has led many economists and investors to shift from having full faith in the jobs market to having some concern for it.

“These numbers are good numbers,” said Claudia Sahm, the chief economist for New Century Advisors, cautioning against overly negative interpretations of the report.

But “the importance of the unemployment rate is it can actually tell us a bit about where we might be going,” she added, noting that the rate had been drifting up since hitting a half-century low of 3.4 percent early last year.

Wage growth slowed in June

Year-over-year percentage change in earnings vs. inflation

+3.9% in June

+3.3% in May

Consumer Price Index

Avg. hourly earnings

More industries are seeing job losses

Change in jobs in June 2024, by sector

Education and health

+82,000 jobs

Construction

Leisure and hospitality

Manufacturing

Business services

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