Why Do Employers Ask For Sample Essays?

Why Do Employers Ask For Sample Essays?A couple of years ago, I was asked to sample essays on a wide range of topics by many different employers. In fact, I was asked to write samples for about 20 different companies. The samples were very different for the types of jobs I was being interviewed for, but they had all of the same purpose: to see how I would fare in answering the questions the employers wanted me to answer. (I should mention that the samples I was being asked to write had already been edited and condensed from an actual writing sample.)All of the sample essays were quite similar: they all had some kind of opening sentence and the question asked would be followed by a brief introduction to the writer's abilities. However, many of the samples had a word or two that actually surprised me in the way that I started to give answers. Before I got any further into the interview process, it became clear that the sample essays were designed to be judged by the hiring manager.It t urned out that the hiring managers did not expect their sample essays to be up-front. Instead, they wanted them to come across as questions, which could only be answered if the sample writer was given specific guidelines about how they could address the questions and do so properly. I was not surprised at this point, but I realized that I had to get ready for the test at this point.Sample essays are used to train people who are going to enter the workforce in many different ways. Some people have no prior experience writing an essay; others may have been writing for years and never learned how to structure a good essay. Whatever the case, these samples are designed to train people who may be new to the process and to help them develop their own style, skills, and techniques. When these people go into the interview process, it is easy for them to succeed because they have been trained to do so.It was when I was asked to give a sample for one of the different companies that I realized that the writing samples weren't being judged on their merits. Rather, they were judged based on what they had already been edited and condensed from. Rather than using them to become prepared for a job interview, it seemed to me that they were being used to help the applicant with the interview. This was especially true for some of the companies that didn't even need a candidate, just an employee who had not yet been hired, prepare for the interview.Most of the sample essays that I was given had been written by someone who was somewhat inexperienced. They had no real skill in the area of written English, and most of their work had never been edited or condensed in any way. So when the company asked me to sample essays, they were not expecting a formal, polished essay, but rather some kind of a rote answer to questions.The company did not want to hire me because I had the ability to write samples, but rather because I had prepared samples which had been heavily edited and condensed from the more experienced writers. In my mind, it seemed obvious that the company was also trying to evaluate my writing, because their intentions for hiring me seemed to be based on how well I could write a few samples of writing that they did not even expect to see in person.After I gave several sample essays, a third organization called me back for an interview. I decided not to take the job, and instead to do some research on samples of essay introductions. I found that the original company had good intentions, but the hired writers had tried to give the hiring managers what they wanted.