Interviews
Read the work sample before you form a theory about the person.
The point of a work sample is to give you something concrete to react to. If you skim it after you have already decided from the resume, you have added work for the candidate and none for the decision.
01Read the rubric before the answer
Open the traits and the evidence scale first. Then read the response once without scoring, and a second time to mark the lines that match or miss the scale. This order keeps writing style from becoming the trait.
If the rubric does not help you judge this particular answer, fix the rubric. Do not invent a private standard for one candidate.
02Write down the sentence that convinced you
A score without a quote is hard to defend and hard to remember. Capture the line, the step, or the tradeoff that carried the score. That note is what you will use when a teammate disagrees, and what the interviewer should ask about next.
Separate “I would have done it differently” from “this misses the evidence we defined.” Taste is not a criterion unless you put it on the card.
03Take the uncertainty into the interview
Use the live conversation to add a constraint, a stakeholder, or a failure mode the written answer did not face. You are testing whether the reasoning holds, not whether the candidate can repeat the paragraph.
Share the work sample with the other interviewers before they meet the candidate. A panel that has not read the evidence will ask beginner questions and waste the hour.
04Decide what would change your mind
Before the debrief, name the evidence that would move your score. That habit keeps a strong résumé, a warm referral, or a shaky video from quietly outweighing the work. It also makes a rejection easier to explain, including to yourself.
If you cannot point to the answer, you are not done reviewing.
Questions
How long should a hiring manager spend on a work sample?
Long enough to apply the rubric and pull a quote. If that takes more than a short sitting, the prompt is probably asking for too much.
What if I disagree with the recruiter’s score?
Compare quotes against the same scale. Disagreement is useful when both notes point at the answer. Update the rubric if the same dispute keeps happening.