Constructing a Pre-Hire Assignment in an AI World

Traditional pre-hire assignments are no longer effective. If a candidate can go home and use AI to draft a flawless pitch deck, territory plan or 30/60/90 strategy, you aren’t testing their skill—you’re testing their ability to use a prompt. To find an elite hire, you need to be in the room where it happens.

The best assignments are now “Live Action.” They should be the final gate before an offer because they require a serious commitment. Top candidates have choices and won’t jump through hoops until they are fully “bought in” to your mission.

The STA “Pressure Cooker” Model We’ve evolved our own hiring process five times over 20 years. Our current assignment is designed to see how a person thrives under real-time pressure:

1. The Window: We give the candidate a strict two-hour window in our office.
2. The Scenario: Three days prior, we tell them they will be briefing our senior partners for a high-stakes call with a CEO and an Investor regarding a critical GTM search.
3. The Live Reveal: We only provide the specific company details at the start of that two-hour window.
4. The Execution: They must research the company, the competitors, and the talent pool in real-time, then brief us on the strategy.

This reveals everything: How they prepare, how they use tools like AI to gain an edge, and most importantly, how they think on their feet. If you want to see if a candidate can actually do the job, stop looking at their homework and start looking at their “work-in-progress.”