The assignment is written. The candidate has agreed to the next step. Someone has added a deadline. Before you press send, there is one more piece of work to finish: decide how the team will read the submission.
A task can look specific on the candidate’s screen while remaining vague inside the hiring team. One reviewer expects a polished presentation. Another wants to see the reasoning. A third plans to compare the result with something a previous candidate made. Those are different tests, even if everyone received the same file.
Write the review plan beside the brief
Start with the question the assignment is meant to help you discuss. “Can this person do the job?” is too broad for a single exercise. Name a smaller piece of work: explaining a trade-off, identifying missing information, or organizing a short handoff.
Then describe what a reviewer should look for in the submission. If the exercise asks someone to explain a choice, the reasoning deserves an explicit place in the review. If the brief asks for a rough outline, presentation polish should not quietly become the deciding standard afterward.
This does not turn a judgment into an objective fact. It records the judgment you intend to make, while there is still time to change the task.
Name the reviewers and their jobs
Decide who reads first, who records the evidence, and who brings unresolved questions to the next conversation. A name is more useful here than “the hiring team.”
Keep each reviewer’s initial notes separate until everyone has recorded their own observations. A shared document can still work, but agree when people should read one another’s comments. The aim is to see what each person noticed before the group starts negotiating a conclusion.
Set aside time to review the actual work. If nobody has time to read a submission carefully, reconsider asking the candidate to produce it. A shorter exercise that the team can discuss is a more coherent plan than a large one that sits unread.
Try the instructions on a fictional example
Before sending the assignment, walk through a small invented response as a team. Do not use a real candidate’s work as your practice material.
Imagine that the exercise asks for a short customer handoff. Your fictional response identifies the next owner and flags an unanswered question, but leaves the formatting rough. Would your reviewers notice the useful information? Would they mark down the formatting even though the brief did not request a finished document?
If the discussion exposes an unstated expectation, make a decision now. Add it to the candidate’s instructions if it belongs in the exercise, or remove it from the review. Do not leave it as a private standard that only the reviewers know.
Plan for missing information
A candidate may make an assumption because the brief leaves something open. Distinguish an assumption from a mistake. Ask whether the task gave the person enough information to make the choice you expected.
Record what you observed before deciding what it means. “The response names an owner but gives no handoff date” is inspectable. “They do not care about deadlines” goes beyond the submission. A follow-up question can explore the gap without treating your first interpretation as established fact.
If reviewers disagree, write down the disagreement and the evidence behind it. A total score should not erase an unresolved question that matters to the role.
Prepare the next message, too
The review plan should include who will update the candidate and when. Only give a date that a named person has agreed to own. If the decision remains open at that point, an accurate status update is still possible.
Decide what feedback the team is prepared to provide before promising it. Avoid improvising different commitments for different candidates because one conversation feels easier than another. Keep any message aligned with your organization’s process and the facts of that application.
A useful final check
Place three things side by side: the task you will send, the criteria your reviewers will use, and the next message the candidate will receive. Check that they describe the same process.
DigitalA.I.’s hiring resources are available in the For Hiring Managers collection. Read the individual product page to see what is included, then adapt any framework to the work and process you actually have. A document cannot make the hiring decision for you.
Before sending the next assignment, finish this sentence: “When it comes back, these people will review it against these expectations.” If the sentence is still vague, the review plan needs another pass.