The finalist receives a request to “prepare our next market-entry strategy”. There is no time limit, no scoring framework and no explanation of who will use the presentation. That is a consulting brief disguised as an assessment. A useful executive work sample is smaller, safer and much easier to judge.
How do you design an executive work sample?
Choose a real responsibility from the role, build a fictional situation that tests it, provide the same core information to every candidate and define observable assessment criteria before reviewing responses. Explain time expectations, permitted assistance, accessibility arrangements and how the output will be used.
Assess the candidate’s reasoning, prioritisation and response to uncertainty rather than the polish of a slide deck. A fictional case can reveal those capabilities without asking someone to solve a live commercial problem or disclose confidential material from a current employer.
This article provides an example design for an agency-managed executive search. It does not claim that one exercise predicts performance for every role. Use it alongside other relevant evidence and a human assessment of what the job actually requires.
Start with the decision the executive will have to make
Translate a job responsibility into a bounded choice, not a broad business essay.
A finance leader might need to challenge competing investment requests. An operations director might need to prioritise a quality problem while protecting customer commitments. A people leader might need to explain a workforce trade-off. Pick one responsibility that matters enough to justify assessing it in depth.
Then decide what evidence would distinguish a strong response from an attractive but weak one. Does the candidate identify missing information? Can they explain the consequence of delaying a decision? Do they recognise where they lack authority? Those are observable behaviours; “executive presence” is too vague on its own.
CIPD describes work samples as tasks connected to the work a person would do. That supports relevance, not the use of a client’s live strategy challenge. Your design should test a capability while avoiding unnecessary commercial value extraction from the candidate.
Build a fictional information pack with deliberate limits
Use invented entities and data, then state which assumptions the candidate may make.
Write a short scenario with fictional company names, financial figures and people. Include enough information for a reasoned recommendation, but allow some uncertainty if dealing with incomplete evidence is part of the role. Make it clear that the figures are invented and do not describe a Yena customer.
Do not merely anonymise a live board pack by changing the logo. Its numbers, customer details or strategic plans may still reveal the organisation. Build the exercise independently and ask a subject-matter reviewer whether the scenario is plausible without being a disguised source of client information.
Remove trivia that rewards familiarity with one employer or market convention unless that knowledge is a genuine requirement. If an acronym matters, define it. If a calculation is not the capability being tested, provide the necessary calculation or allow appropriate tools. The aim is useful evidence, not a puzzle.
Tell candidates what participation involves
A clear invitation prevents the best-prepared candidate from simply being the person with the most spare time.
State the suggested preparation window, meeting format, expected output and total time commitment. Explain whether a written note, conversation or short presentation is acceptable. Where the work is substantial, consider an appropriately reviewed paid arrangement rather than expanding an unpaid request without discussion.
Set an explicit rule for AI, research and outside assistance. One workable approach is allowing stated tools while requiring candidates to explain and defend their reasoning. Another is a supervised exercise with the same resources for everyone. Do not infer cheating from a polished sentence or rely on an AI detector as proof.
Offer a confidential route for adjustment requests. UK government guidance explains that recruitment may require reasonable adjustments. The practical instruction should describe how to ask and who will arrange it; the assessment panel usually needs the arrangement, not unnecessary medical detail.
- Purpose of the exercise and the capability being assessed.
- Expected output and proportionate preparation time.
- Permitted tools, information sources and assistance.
- Adjustment contact and how the results will be used.
Create behavioural anchors before seeing the submissions
Write down what good evidence looks like without prescribing one preferred answer.
Use a few role-relevant criteria, such as separating facts from assumptions, considering affected stakeholders, identifying a material risk and proposing a practical next step. Describe examples of weak, adequate and strong evidence for each. Do not let a single elegant slide stand in for all of them.
Allow different defensible recommendations. Two executives can reach different conclusions because they prioritise different risks. The assessor’s job is to test whether the reasoning holds, not to reward agreement with the person who wrote the case. Record where the reasoning depends on an assumption that the brief left open.
Have assessors score independently before discussing the candidate. Then compare the evidence behind their scores. If the panel cannot explain a rating without adjectives, the anchor probably needs work. Keep the candidate’s style, accent or familiarity with a particular presentation tool separate from the intended competency.
Illustrative exercise: prioritising two operational problems
A small fictional choice can produce richer evidence than a demand for a complete transformation plan.
Imagine a fictional European components business with a delivery backlog and a rising defect rate. The candidate receives a short invented dataset, a limited budget and a choice of interventions. The task asks for an initial recommendation, what additional information matters most and what should happen if that information contradicts the initial view.
During the discussion, introduce the same new fact for every candidate: one customer has a safety-critical application. Watch how the person updates the recommendation and communicates uncertainty. A strong candidate may change their mind. Consistency with the first slide is not automatically a virtue.
The client should not reuse the exercise output as an operating plan. Its purpose is assessment of the candidate’s response to a fictional scenario. Keep the case version, the question asked and the evidence observed so the decision can be explained without preserving unnecessary personal commentary.
Pilot the case before using it in a live search
A task can look clear to its author while being ambiguous or impossible to finish for everyone else.
Ask an informed colleague who did not design the case to complete it under the proposed conditions. Record where they lack essential information, where instructions conflict and which parts take longer than expected. Revise the task rather than assuming candidates should overcome flaws that have nothing to do with the job.
Check the accessibility of the material and format. Tables should be readable, documents should work with relevant assistive technology and remote participation should not depend on an unfamiliar tool without instructions. Test the actual file you will send, not an earlier draft.
Pilot the scoring too. Give assessors the same sample answer and compare their evidence notes. Large unexplained differences suggest ambiguous criteria. Fix those before a real person’s progression depends on them. A pilot is a design check, not proof that the exercise has been scientifically validated.
Combine the work sample with the rest of the assessment
Treat the exercise as one source of evidence with known limits.
Compare the observed reasoning with the candidate’s experience, structured interview and any appropriately conducted reference checks. If sources disagree, define the unanswered question. A strong simulation cannot establish everything about sustained leadership; a less polished exercise does not automatically negate years of relevant results.
Give the client a concise evidence summary, including the case conditions and material adjustments to the format. Explain what was assessed and what was not. Avoid an unexplained global score that implies more precision than the exercise supports.
Close the loop with candidates using feedback that is specific enough to be useful without exposing other people’s responses. State how their material will be handled and follow the actual retention process. An assessment can be rigorous and still leave the person feeling their time was respected.
Executive work-sample design sheet
Complete this before inviting candidates. The fields organise the exercise; they are not a validated psychometric instrument.
| Design element | Practical choice | Failure to avoid |
|---|---|---|
| Role responsibility | One important decision or communication task | A generic presentation unrelated to the job |
| Scenario | Fictional facts with stated assumptions | A live client problem with the logo removed |
| Participation | Clear time expectation and permitted resources | Rewarding unlimited unpaid preparation |
| Evidence | Observable criteria and independent notes | Scoring polish as a substitute for judgement |
| Fair access | Tested format and an adjustment route | Collecting unnecessary health details |
| Debrief | Same core challenge and comparable follow-up | Changing the task to favour a preferred person |
Boundaries of an executive case exercise
Work-sample design requires role knowledge and care. This template is not a substitute for specialist assessment expertise where decisions require a validated instrument, regulated professional evaluation or a more complex fairness analysis.
A fictional exercise still creates candidate information. Keep assessment records relevant, control access and apply the applicable privacy rules. Do not promise confidentiality or deletion practices that your agency and client cannot actually deliver.
Questions about executive work samples
Useful boundaries make the exercise easier to explain and fairer to operate.
Should executives complete a live strategy project?
For a selection exercise, a fictional task is usually a cleaner way to examine relevant reasoning without requesting commercially useful work. If substantial real work is proposed, establish an appropriate separate arrangement and obtain advice.
Can candidates use AI to prepare?
Decide in advance, explain the rule and apply it consistently. If tools are allowed, ask candidates to disclose their use and defend the reasoning. Do not treat writing style or a detector score as conclusive evidence of misuse.
How long should the exercise take?
Set a proportionate expectation after piloting the actual task. There is no universal duration for every executive role. The instruction should prevent open-ended preparation and explain the full commitment before the person agrees.
Should the highest exercise score decide the hire?
No single exercise should silently become the whole decision. Consider the relevant evidence together, investigate contradictions and explain the limits of what the work sample demonstrated.
Assessment and accessibility sources
These sources inform job relevance, fair participation and professional treatment. The fictional case and design sheet are original editorial material, not an endorsed assessment product.
- CIPD: choosing job-relevant assessment methods and work samples
- GOV.UK: reasonable adjustments during recruitment
- AESC: candidate confidentiality and professional assessment principles
Build the surrounding evidence process
Use structured interview scorecards · Build a defensible candidate shortlist · Handle interview adjustment requests · Explore executive-search workflows
Keep the assessment context connected
Explore Yena with your existing recruitment workflow to see how candidate and mandate context can be organised. Your team designs the assessment, checks fairness and makes the recommendation.
Explore Yena for executive search