: Freelance writing: how much of a test for a job would be considered actual work done for free? I'm a freelance writer. Sometimes people ask me to write samples as a test. I notice that sometimes

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What a great question. I have been burned many a time by this. This is especially a problem with small businesses and clients who have jobs (lasting less than a week) which they are looking to hire for.

I don't think that employers are trying to exploit job applicants. They just don't realize how time-consuming these stupid writing tests/sample requirements are.

(The hidden problem is that job seekers are under pressure to hide the amount of work they actually have to do on something).

I once had to demonstrate my competence at technical editing by editing about 5-10 pages of hugely complicated text. It easily took 4-5 hours, then I had to write a Scope of Work document (2 or 3 hours). Then I ended up not getting the contract (probably because I did not lowball my bid but gave an "honest" estimate.

I looked at that technical document 2 or 3 times to make sure it was great, and the scope of work -- which I hadn't really done before, needed to be done. (I recommend having a Scope of Work template ready at any time). Even if you have a template ready, it can easily take 1 hour to plug in what you want.

Most recently I had to take a stupid grammar test. It was only an hour long, but a lot of the answers were iffy and required explanation. (The manager just took it from a website and didn't realize that sometimes there is no one right answer and that most people with English degrees already can pass these tests with flying colors).

Here is a rule of thumb: the time to write the writing sample and do the scope of work should not be more than 20% of the total length of the contract.

Let me say that a lot of job applications involve 3-5 hours of work each, so I guess I can live with burning 3 hours of my time on writing tests, etc.

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