- THIS IS FOR A ACTUAL JOB- PLEASE answer to the best of your ability-
We are not against the use of LLMs if you feel that they can effectively support your thought process. However, we do not want to read purely LLM-generated output. If an LLM is used, please disclose where, and include the prompt you used. Acceptable (but non-exhaustive) examples of using LLMs for this test task include:- Turning bullet points to text; summarising text
- Rewriting specific phrases or sections in a certain style
- Grammar checks
- Assisting with brainstorming, as long the output is used critically and not copy and pasted blindly
- Thank you! We know these exercises take real effort, and we read every one closely.
Task 1
Instructions
You have just started as Head of People and Recruitment at Tarbell. A conflict has surfaced between two members of staff. Below is everything you've observed so far. We're not asking you to "solve" the situation in one move, because real situations rarely allow that. We're asking you to show us how you'd think and act as the person responsible for handling it.
Please read the scenario context below, then complete each of the four tasks. There is no minimum or maximum length. Write as much as you need to demonstrate your thinking, and no more. You may invent reasonable details about Tarbell where the scenario doesn't specify them; if you do, state your assumptions.
We care less about whether you reach the "right" answer and more about your judgment, your process, and the quality and tone of your writing.
Context
Daniel Chen is the Grants Program Director. He joined Tarbell roughly 2 years ago and was one of the earliest hires. He's highly regarded by the leadership team; he built much of the grants process from scratch and is the institutional memory for how grant decisions get made. He's direct, works fast, and has strong opinions. He reports to the Executive Director.
Priya Nair is a Program Associate on the Grants team. She joined four months ago, her first role in the nonprofit/AI space after several years in journalism. She reports to Daniel. She's detail-oriented and well-liked by the rest of the team.
The email that started it. Yesterday Priya sent you the following email:
Hi,
I know we've only met a couple of times since you started, so I'm sorry to land this in your inbox. Would it be possible to get fifteen minutes with you sometime this week? I'd rather talk in person than put it all in an email, but I wanted to give you a sense of what it's about so it's not a surprise.
The short version is that I'm finding it increasingly hard to work with Daniel, and I'm not sure how to handle it.
A few things have been building up. He often rewrites my work, grant memos, candidate notes for the grantee pipeline, without telling me what was wrong with the original. Sometimes he does it after I've already sent a near-final version around to the wider team, so the first I hear of it is when I open the shared drive and see a changed version with my name still on the earlier draft. I've started checking the drive obsessively to see if he’s changed anything.
It's also happening in meetings. In the last two team meetings, when someone asked me a question directly, Daniel jumped in and answered for me before I could. I don't think he means anything by it, but it makes me feel like he's signalling that I don't know my own work.
I'll be honest that it's started to get into my head a bit. I've spent a couple of evenings recently redoing things I'd thought were finished, and I've been wondering whether I'm just not cut out for this kind of role. I really want to do well here.
I haven't said anything to Daniel, and I'd really prefer you didn't either, at least not yet. I'm worried it'll make things worse, and he's so well respected here that I don't want to come across as difficult four months in. I just didn't know who else to talk to.
Thank you, and again, sorry to drop this on you.
Priya
What you already knew. Before Priya's email, the only signal you'd had was small: in a standup two weeks ago, you noticed Daniel say "I'll just take that one" when a task was tentatively assigned to Priya. You didn't think much of it at the time.
A hallway exchange. The day after meeting Priya, you happened to pass Daniel in the kitchen. Without prompting, he mentioned he was "drowning." The Q3 grant round opens next week, he's covering for another Program Associate who’s on leave, and he said, half-joking, "I'm basically doing two jobs and quality-checking a third." He didn't name Priya, and he has no idea you've spoken to her. He seemed stressed but not unhappy with you; if anything, he seemed glad to vent.
Context you have access to. Priya's two-month check-in notes (written by Daniel) were positive but brief: "settling in well, good attention to detail, still building context on the goals of the program." There's no documented performance concern. You also know that Tarbell has never had a formal performance-management process; you're the person who would build one. The Executive Director (Daniel's manager) is competent but stretched thin, so while you’ll likely inform him of your actions, you’ll be the main person handling this situation.
Task 1a: Assessment (what do you make of this?)
Briefly lay out how you read the situation right now. What do you think might be going on? Flag anything that concerns you or that you'd be careful about.
[answer here]
Task 1b: What you need to know, and how you'd find out
List the key open questions you'd want answered before acting, why the answers matter, and how you'd go about getting that information: who you'd talk to, in what order, and what you'd be careful to do or not do. Note that Priya asked you not to speak to Daniel yet; address how you'll handle that.
[answer here]
Task 1c: Your plan
Lay out how you intend to move toward resolving this over the next ~2 weeks. Be concrete about the order in which you’d do things. Where relevant, note what a good outcome looks like to you and how you'd know if your approach wasn't working.
[answer here]
Task 1d: Two messages
Draft the actual text of:
(a) A reply or follow-up message to Priya, sent after your first conversation with her.
(b) The message you'd use to open a conversation with Daniel (e.g. a Slack message or email proposing to talk, or your opening if you'd rather do it in person; your choice, but make the choice explicit and write the actual words).
Write these as real messages, in the voice you'd actually use.
[answer both (a) and (b) here]
Task 2
Context
You are the Head of People and Recruitment at Tarbell. The Executive Director has drafted a job posting for Program Manager/Director, Fellowship. The linked draft lays out the role’s responsibilities as well as some thoughts on who might be a good fit for the role.
Task 2a: The job posting
Give feedback on the job posting. Right now you know very little about Tarbell’s strategy or plans, so just assume that the current posting is a good representation of our strategic goals for the position.
That said, are there ways in which this JD falls short? The current plan is to post this text everywhere: Specialized journalism job boards, community Slack channels, LinkedIn, etc. What could be improved? What’s unclear? We haven’t planted obvious errors in the JD, and we’re not looking for anything specific. This is just an opportunity to demonstrate your skills and experience when it comes to effectively communicating an open role.
If there are specific textual suggestions you’d like to make, feel free to make a copy of the JD and use the Google Docs “suggestions” or “comments” functionality. If you do this, make sure to share edit access with and include a link to the document below.
If there’s any additional information you’d like to know that would help you to make the best job posting possible, please write those questions here as well.
[answer here]
Task 2b: Evaluating candidates
Sketch out a scheme for evaluating candidates for this role. The JD already says there will be a 3-5 hour work task, a 30-60 minute interview, and a 2-day work trial (with progressively fewer candidates in each stage). Nothing has been decided beyond that, and even that structure can be modified if necessary.
You don’t have enough time to build out a full system and toolset for rating and comparing candidates, and that’s not what we’re looking for. Instead, we want an outline or sketch of the process you’d want to see. Here are some guiding questions, by no means a complete list:
- What should we be focusing on when evaluating candidates?
- How will we know which candidates are best?
- Who should own or participate in which parts of the evaluation process?
- (The ED will be their manager and they’ll have 2 direct reports to start.)
- How can we remove unwanted bias from the process without making it too difficult to run?
We recognize that this is a very open question, but that’s the reality of this role: We don’t have great systems in place for hiring, and each hiring round brings new challenges. As Head of People and Recruitment, you will be responsible for solving these challenges, professionalizing our hiring process, and making sure Tarbell hires the applicant who will be the most effective in their role.
[answer here]