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Take Home Assignment

Explore real examples of Take Home Assignments

Learn how the best operators in tech think about take home assignments. explore 48 examples of take home assignments so you never have to start from scratch..

Updated April 25, 2024

What is a Take Home Assignment?

A take-home assignment evaluates candidates' skills in a practical context, useful in fields like software development and design. Reforge can enhance the effectiveness of these assignments with strategies and insights that ensure they accurately assess creativity, problem-solving, and practical skills. Our resources help employers craft assignments that provide a clear and comprehensive evaluation of a candidate's abilities.

Popular Take Home Assignment examples

Explore 10 most popular Take Home Assignments from top companies.

Interview presentation for VP of product/growth role

by Laura Schaffer , Created as Head of Growth Product @ Twilio

This is the presentation I prepared for an interview that resulted in an offer for a Vice President (VP) role at a $100M public company.

• Laura prepared a presentation for an interview.
• The interview was for a VP role at a $100M public company.
• The presentation resulted in an offer for the position.

Product Marketing Take Home Assignment at Canva

by Elena Madrigal , Created as Senior Product Marketing Manager @ Canva

I created this presentation while interviewing at Canva for the role of Senior Product Marketing for their Print Business Unit. The presentation got very positive feedback, which led to a job offer that I accepted.

• Elena was asked to prepare a GTM proposal to launch Photo Books at Canva.
• The challenge included defining campaign objectives, appropriate channels, and success metrics.
• Elena's presentation received positive feedback and led to a job offer as Senior Product Marketing for Canva's Print Business Unit.

Performance Marketing Lead Interview Presentation at Canva

by Chris Cichon , Created while interviewing for a Performance Marketing role

I prepared this presentation while interviewing for a Head of Performance Marketing role. This is how I would approach performance marketing for a company already at scale.

• Chris researched existing creative and spoke with the hiring manager to clarify company priorities.
• He recommends looking at shareholder letters or podcasts to understand how founders and execs communicate.
• Chris suggests a content pillar approach with a creative growth loop for performance marketing at scale. He emphasizes owning creative and building a process to maximize ROI.

Take-Home Assignment for Product Interview at Uber

by Surbhi Gupta , Created while interviewing for a product role at Uber

This take-home assignment not only secured offers from two distinct teams within Uber, but also garnered high appreciation for my performance on the assignment.

• Surbhi's take-home assignment for Uber's Product Interview involved a week of extensive research and analysis on Uber's marketplace strategy.
• The assignment addressed Uber's unique position in multiple marketplaces, exploring the benefits and tech advancements for earners on the platform.
• Surbhi's initiative in conducting additional research and engaging with Uber drivers was highly valued, and she received offers from two different product teams.

Product Marketing Manager Take-home Assignment at Figma

by Anna Pomerantseva , Created while interviewing for a PMM role

This GTM strategy presentation received very positive feedback from the interview team at Figma.

• Anna created a GTM strategy for upselling Figma's accounts to their premium enterprise plan as part of her interview process.
• She spent 5 hours over 3 days working on this and presented it to the hiring team for 20 minutes.
• Despite not getting the offer, Anna received positive feedback and was asked to stay in touch.

OfferUp Take Home Exercise for Product Managers

by Anuj Mahajan , Created as Product Manager @ OfferUp

This is the presentation that got me a Product Management Intern role at OfferUp and that I’ve used throughout the years for similar tasks.

• Anuj created this monetization plan as part of a hiring exercise.
• He has continued to use this template over the years across various projects.
• His Design Thinking Methodology slide had the most impact and helped him secure a role at OfferUp.

Take-Home Exercise: MaintainX Growth Strategy

by Japna Sethi , Created Advising startups on growth

I created this presentation while interviewing for a new role. Here I share my process for completing take-home assignments that highlight how I think through strategies and my work process more than an interview has the potential to.

• Japna completed this take-home exercise as part of an interview process, which involved presenting to a cross-functional panel.
• The purpose of take-home exercises is to assess the critical thinking skills and frameworks used, not just the output.
• Japna prefers homework assignments that are not related to the company's product and found that showing her work earlier in the process helped her perform better in interviews. She also recommends using FigJam for presentations.

Hiring simulation for a Senior Product Manager, Onboarding role at Slack

by Fareed Mosavat , Created as Director of Product, Lifecycle @ Slack

When hiring a new Senior Product Manager for Onboarding at Slack, we used this hiring simulation exercise to help better understand how candidates would perform in the role.

• Fareed used this hiring simulation exercise to evaluate candidates for the role of Senior Product Manager for Onboarding at Slack.
• Slack's challenge at the time was to improve onboarding for mobile users to increase success rates.
• Candidates were asked to create a presentation outlining big, creative bets to address the challenge. The process and approach were more important than the answer.

Product Manager Take-home Exercise at Showmax

by Barron Ernst , Created as Chief Product Officer @ Showmax

I used this take-home exercise to hire a payments PM at Showmax but have tailored this template to hire for a number of PM roles at different organizations.

• Barron used a tailored take-home exercise for hiring a payments Product Manager at Showmax and adapted it for various PM roles.
• The focus was on evaluating candidates' ability to structure and prioritize plans, assess the cost of work, and handle unexpected challenges.
• Barron emphasized the importance of candidates not just generating ideas but selecting and justifying a few crucial ones, demonstrating adaptability during curveball scenarios.
• The final interview round assessed EQ, recognizing that effective communication with the executive team was critical for the role.

Webinar Marketing Plan Interview Exercise

by Magdalena Zawarska , Created while a candidate for first Product Marketing Manager

As part of the interview process for a Growth Marketing Manager role, I created this presentation for a webinar strategy. Going from B2C to B2B required a lot of research and feedback from my network, but I ultimately landed the role.

• As part of the interview process for a Growth Marketing Manager role, Magdalena created this presentation for a webinar strategy.
• Going from B2C to B2B required a lot of research and feedback from my network, but I ultimately landed the role.
• She emphasized maximizing content, utilizing audience engagement data, collaboration, and a balanced approach.
• Magdalena researched extensively, utilized peer feedback, and focused on visually compelling representation of the plan. She over-prepared and learned the value of speaker selection and relevant use cases.

View all 48 examples of Take Home Assignments.

Other popular Take Home Assignments

Explore the full catalog of Take Home Assignment resources to get inspired

Anuj Mahajan, Created as Product Manager @ OfferUp

Japna Sethi, Created Advising startups on growth

Fareed Mosavat, Created as Director of Product, Lifecycle @ Slack

Barron Ernst, Created as Chief Product Officer @ Showmax

Magdalena Zawarska, Created while a candidate for first Product Marketing Manager

Mirela Cialai, Created as a freelance marketing consultant

I created this lifecycle marketing case study as part of an interview process for a Director position.

Adam Fishman, Created as Interim, Chief Product & Technology Officer @ ResortPass

In the later rounds of hiring a senior product leader, I used this take-home exercise as the basis for a strategy discussion.

Fareed Mosavat, Created as Senior Product Manager, Growth @ Slack

When applying for the role of Senior Product Manager for New Experiences at Slack, I used this take-home exercise submission to showcase my ability to apply deep and structured thinking to product problems.

Sarah Payne, Created while working in product management

I originally created this case study as part of a hiring process, but would have done it the same way if I was internal at a company that was based around a hardware device and looking to grow.

Yi Lin Pei, Created as Director of Product Marketing @ Teachable

This is a typical assignment I give to candidates applying for Product Marketing Manager roles. I also include my detailed rubric for how I evaluate the quality of the assignment.

View all 48 examples of Take Home Assignments

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• Articles / Homework

Smart Homework: How to Manage & Assess It

by MiddleWeb · Published 08/20/2014 · Updated 12/14/2019

In the first installment of our smart homework series from author & teaching consultant Rick Wormeli, he made the case for take-home assignments that matter for learning and engage student interest . In Part 2 , Rick suggested 13 guiding principles to help teachers create homework challenges that spark deeper learning. In this final article, Rick suggests some good ways to assess homework and manage the workload .

These articles are adapted with permission from Rick’s seminal book about teaching in the middle grades, Day One & Beyond: Practical Matters for New Middle Level Teachers (Stenhouse, 2005). Rick continues to offer great advice about homework, differentiation, assessment and many other topics in workshops and presentations across North America.

Fresh approaches to middle grades homework have many benefits, but how does all this play out as we manage homework in our classrooms? How do we assess homework effectively? How do we handle the paperwork? How do we guard against homework becoming just busywork again?

Here are some ideas:

▶ For big projects with multiple weeks of student responses, such as a science learning log or a reader’s response journal, skim every page students have written, but have students select one entry for a letter grade by placing a star on the intended page. The entry should demonstrate outstanding thinking, science protocol, plot analysis, personal response, or whatever you’re emphasizing with the unit. If you’re worried about having a large enough sample, grade two or three entries.

▶ When checking a list of problems, sentences, or answers to questions, have students work in groups of four or five to confirm answers with one another. If someone gets the wrong answer and doesn’t understand why, the rest of the group explains. If the student or group is stuck in understanding how an answer was achieved, they identify that one problem/sentence/question to the teacher when she calls the groups back to the whole class. The teacher reviews only identified problems.

▶ While groups are meeting to review homework, the teacher circulates from group to group, recording evidence of successful collaborations (to be shared later with the whole group), answering questions, correcting misconceptions, facilitating student conversations, and identifying areas to reteach. The great thing about this method is found in the value of conversation, not just the assessment the teacher does. Students who “talk math” (or English, history, science, art, PE, technology, drama, or music) learn those subjects.

▶ Don’t grade everything. Some assignments can be marked with a check or a zero for having done it. Spot-check problems two, nine, and seventeen because they represent different concepts you were worried about students understanding.

▶ Keep the student’s effort in doing the homework from diluting the grade that indicates mastery of content. That is, separate work habits from the letter grade if you can. Even though I know that good work habits usually yield high achievement, as a parent I don’t want my son’s grade to be based on anything but mastery of content and skills. If the grade’s validity reflects good effort but not mastery, then my son isn’t held accountable for learning, I don’t have a valid judgment of his learning, and he doesn’t have the required knowledge.

In the real world, we do not pay a carpet layer for the job until the job is done, regardless of how many hours or days it took, or how hot it was. The degree of his effort is not relevant, just that the job is done well (the standard of excellence was achieved). High-tech-industry workers may work all night long preparing a proposal for a client, but their efforts are irrelevant to the client who accepts and reviews all proposals equally that cross her desk by 10:00 a.m. the next morning.

Revising and Redoing Homework

The teacher is an expert and a coach. Students are not penalized for multiple attempts and revisions, or for not understanding the first time around. The focus is on achieving the standard of excellence. The feedback to the student is clear: If they don’t achieve, they are not given master craftsman status (an A), nor can they set up a practice. They have not yet met the rigorous criteria (standards) for mastery. We can see the revision of important homework tasks in the same way—students do it until they get it right.

Consider the reflections of middle school educator Nancy Long: “We have experimented with dozens of rubric styles over the last few years, and my favorite still is the one that lists all of the content criteria and all of the quality criteria on the left side and has two columns on the right side: YES and NOT YET. Check marks are used in the appropriate column to show which criteria have been met and which still need work.”

Nancy continues: “I try to schedule deadlines for assignments far enough ahead of the end of the grading period so there is time for everyone to get the papers back and do over what was not right before I must assign a grade ‘in concrete.’ . . . (like) in most things in our adult lives, we can mess up and still get another chance to get it right without too large a penalty!”

Another successful educator, Bill Ivey, says this about redoing homework assignments:

“It is exactly what we want our children to do. We had an English teacher who, by taking her sixth-grade class carefully through draft after draft, helped them create poetry that was more powerful than many of the poetry contest winners at our high school, where the poetry program is considered to be quite strong. The principle here can apply to any subject and any learning.”

Punishing Students Who Don’t Do Homework

Homework’s objective is to be instructional, not punitive. It would be wrong to fail a student for not doing homework when he had mastered all I had to teach. It would, however, indicate that I must not be doing my job very well. If my course is too easy for the student, then I need to make it more challenging for him or pursue placing him in a more advanced course.

Some argue against assessing homework in light of out-of-school pressures affecting a student’s ability to do schoolwork. We need to remember that our first task is to teach so that students will learn. Punishing a kid who cannot complete an assignment due to something beyond his control is abusive. We can’t just shrug our shoulders and say that a child has to do the homework and if he doesn’t, that’s just tough, regardless of the child’s situation.

We can work with families to find a satisfactory way in which to complete the work. I had a student who worked approximately four hours after school every day of the week in order to help support his family. Yes, I could have told him and his family that it is illegal to work at his age. Yes, I could have told him and the family that school is his job and it should come first. But food, medicine, and shelter were more basic needs. Completing a worksheet on objective pronouns pales in comparison.

If the student masters the material, then why should I fail him for not doing homework in the midst of such struggles? We should do the most effective thing for students, not the easiest thing for teachers. Many of our students live in harsh realities. Our compassion and alternative structuring of homework assignments will prepare those students for adult success far better than the punishment for not doing a set of 20 math problems ever will.

Is homework a necessary evil?

It’s troubling that many of today’s homework assignments and practices parallel those from the turn of the last century. Today’s middle schools require innovative and developmentally responsive homework based on what we now know about the human brain and young adolescents. One of the pluses of teaching and using these sanity-saving, creative approaches is that we get to experience the inspiring products our students create.

▶ Bonus idea: Homework reprieve

If you’re looking for ways to reward and motivate students and integrate homework into the regular work flow of your classroom, try a “Homework Deadline Extension Certificate.” I used these every quarter in my own classroom. Students really compete for them.

On the day an assignment is due, students can submit the certificate instead of their homework and they are automatically allowed to turn in the assignment one, two, or three days late, according to your comfort level, for full credit. If we reward those who’ve earned these certificates by extending the deadline but not voiding the need to complete the assignment, we haven’t diminished the assignment’s importance. ( Make your own certificate .)

Of course, students learn to be judicious in their use—if the assignment was to study for tomorrow’s test, it won’t help them to use their deadline extension certificate. If they’re working on a complicated project, they’d be wise to have their certificate in reserve.

His books include Meet Me in the Middle ; Day One and Beyond ; Fair Isn’t Always Equal: Assessment and Grading in the Differentiated Classroom ; Differentiation: From Planning to Practice; Metaphors & Analogies: Power Tools for Teaching Any Subject, and Summarization in Any Subject , plus The Collected Writings (So Far) of Rick Wormeli: Crazy Good Stuff I Learned about Teaching Along the Way .

He is currently working on his first young adult fiction novel and a new book on homework practices in the 21 st century.

Share this:

Tags: Day One & Beyond grading homework homework homework guidelines homework policies middle school Rick Wormeli why homework

MiddleWeb is all about the middle grades, with great 4-8 resources, book reviews, and guest posts by educators who support the success of young adolescents. And be sure to subscribe to MiddleWeb SmartBrief for the latest middle grades news & commentary from around the USA.

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Cracking the Code: Mastering Take-Home Assignments for Product Management Interviews

Navigating a product management interview, especially with the added challenge of a take-home assignment, can indeed be daunting. However, with the right strategies and preparation, you can approach these assignments with confidence and excel. This comprehensive guide aims to provide you with actionable tips and insights to help you tackle your product management interview assignments effectively. From understanding the assignment requirements to organizing your approach and delivering a polished final product, each step of the process will be covered to ensure you are well-equipped to succeed. Whether it's analyzing case studies, presenting solutions, or demonstrating your problem-solving skills, this guide will empower you to showcase your abilities and make a lasting impression on potential employers. So, fear not! With this guide as your companion, you'll be ready to ace your product management interview assignments and take the next step in your career with confidence and poise.

What's the purpose of Take-Home Assignments?

Take-home assignments serve as an integral component of the interview process for companies seeking to assess candidates' suitability for product management roles . These tasks are designed to provide hiring managers with insight into candidates' problem-solving skills, product thinking abilities, and approach to real-world scenarios. By completing the assignment, candidates have the opportunity to showcase their capabilities and demonstrate their thought process in addressing complex challenges. This practical demonstration allows recruiters to gain a deeper understanding of candidates' potential as product managers, beyond what can be gleaned from traditional interviews alone. Ultimately, take-home assignments serve as a valuable tool for evaluating candidates' readiness and suitability for product management roles within the organization.

Let's take a look at 9 key points to remember for you to master Take-Home Assignments:

1. Decoding the Assignment

Deciphering the assignment begins with a meticulous examination of the brief provided. This involves dissecting the problem statement, objectives, evaluation criteria, and the anticipated deliverables. Paying heed to any specific requirements or constraints outlined in the assignment is crucial as they serve as guiding parameters for your approach. Understanding the nuances of the assignment ensures that you embark on the task with clarity and purpose, setting the stage for a well-structured and targeted solution.

2. Time Management is Key

Efficient time management forms the backbone of successful completion of a take-home assignment. Crafting a realistic timeline is paramount, allocating adequate time for each phase of the task, from comprehending the problem to research, brainstorming, execution, and refinement. Prioritizing tasks based on their significance and potential impact on the final output is essential to ensure that no aspect of the assignment is overlooked or rushed. By adhering to a well-planned schedule, you maximize productivity, minimize stress, and optimize the quality of your solution.

3. Research and Immersion

Delivering a compelling solution hinges on immersing yourself in the intricacies of the product domain, target audience, and user personas delineated in the assignment. Thorough research acts as the cornerstone of informed decision-making, providing valuable insights into user needs, market dynamics, competitor landscape, and industry trends. The depth and breadth of your understanding directly influence the strategic soundness and relevance of your solution, making comprehensive research a non-negotiable aspect of the process. By delving deep into the subject matter, you equip yourself with the knowledge and perspective necessary to devise innovative and impactful solutions.

4. Define Your Approach

A well-defined approach serves as the roadmap for navigating the complexities of the assignment and devising a structured solution. Begin by articulating the problem statement succinctly, ensuring a clear understanding of the task at hand. Breaking down the assignment into manageable components facilitates a systematic approach, allowing you to tackle each aspect methodically. Establishing key milestones enables you to track progress, maintain focus, and ensure timely completion of the assignment. By delineating a coherent and strategic approach, you demonstrate your analytical prowess, problem-solving acumen, and ability to navigate complex challenges effectively.

5. Prototype and Iterate

Prototyping serves as a powerful tool for refining and validating your solution iteratively. Don't hesitate to translate your ideas into tangible forms through sketches, wireframes, or basic prototypes. Prototyping enables you to visualize concepts, test hypotheses, and gather feedback early in the process. Iterating on your design allows you to identify and address potential shortcomings, refine features, and fine-tune the user experience. By incorporating user-centric design principles and feedback loops, you enhance the efficacy and usability of your solution, ensuring alignment with user needs and expectations.

6. Presentation Matters

Presenting your solution effectively is as crucial as the solution itself. Structuring your response in a coherent and logical manner ensures that your ideas are conveyed clearly and comprehensively. Utilize visual aids, such as charts, diagrams, and illustrations, to enhance understanding and highlight key insights. Craft a narrative that guides the evaluator through your decision-making process, rationale, and the strategic considerations behind your solution choices. By articulating your thoughts with clarity and precision, you facilitate a deeper understanding of your solution and its potential impact.

7. Seek Feedback

Seeking feedback from mentors, peers, or industry professionals after submitting your assignment can provide valuable perspectives and insights. Constructive feedback helps identify blind spots, areas for improvement, and alternative approaches that you may not have considered. Embrace feedback as a learning opportunity, leveraging it to refine your skills, enhance your approach, and broaden your perspective. Engaging in dialogue with others fosters a culture of continuous improvement and personal growth, positioning you for success in future assignments and professional endeavors.

8. Stay Authentic

While demonstrating your skills and expertise is essential, it's equally important to stay true to your authentic self in your solution. Let your unique perspective, creativity, and passion shine through, as they are valuable assets that set you apart from other candidates. Authenticity fosters genuine connections and resonates with potential employers seeking individuals with integrity, originality, and innovative thinking. By staying authentic, you build trust, credibility, and rapport, laying the foundation for a successful career in product management .

9. Practice, Practice, Practice

Mastering take-home assignments requires consistent practice, refinement, and honing of your skills . Engage in mock assignments, simulate diverse scenarios, and challenge yourself to think critically and creatively. Actively seek opportunities to apply your problem-solving skills and iterate on your approach based on feedback and experience. With each practice session, you'll gain confidence, proficiency, and a deeper understanding of the nuances of product management. Embrace the iterative nature of learning, remain open to experimentation, and commit to continuous improvement to excel in tackling take-home assignments and succeeding in your product management career.

Approaching take-home assignments for product management interviews may seem daunting at first, but with the right mindset, preparation, and strategy, you can excel in showcasing your potential as a product leader. By understanding the purpose of the assignment, managing your time effectively, conducting thorough research, defining a structured approach, and emphasizing presentation and authenticity, you'll be well-equipped to crack the code and impress hiring managers with your innovative solutions.

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Software Engineer Interview: Take-home Assignment

Take-home assignment is the type of interview where you will demonstrate your programming skills on a somewhat close-to-real coding project. Usually, it’s a description of a small project that you need to implement from scratch or a skeleton that you need to extend.

It is used mostly by small and medium companies, Big Tech and FAANG/MANGA+ enterprises rarely incorporate it into their processes.

In this post, I will share with you how to make the best out of good take-home assignments and how to deal with unfair ones.

Controversy #

Take-home assignment is a very controversial interview type and It gets a massive amount of negative feedback.

The main reasons are:

• It is long . It takes significantly more time than any other section of the process, like a coding interview( https://smyachenkov.com/posts/swe-interview-p1-coding/ )
• Large amount of dull boilerplate work . You need to care about organizing the project from scratch, framework setup, complex data model descriptions, etc.
• Subjective and hidden evaluation criteria. For example, some companies prefer everything to be implemented from scratch, and some allow you to rely on libraries. Small things, like logging style, amount of classes, and versions of libraries can make an appearance in feedback for the assignment. It can be very frustrating when you never knew that this particular aspect is important for the interview, especially when it’s left out of the requirements.

Here’s some feedback I’ve received for my take-home assignments:

• Too much code.
• Relied too much on libraries.
• Outdated version of the library (one month old, gotta go fast!).
• The worst one — no feedback at all for 2 full days of work.

Good And Bad Assignments #

I recommend taking a closer look at your assignment and estimating the amount of work. If it will take more than 1 day, if it will require a lot of boilerplate code, or if it tries to cover too wide areas — something like creating a system with 2 back-end applications + front-end + database — contact your recruiter and suggest making it simpler or to find an alternative.

If your assignment requires more than 1 day to complete — generally it is a bad sign. I highly recommend ignoring those types of take-home assignments or negotiating to lower the amount of work or replacing this assignment with a coding or design session.

Good assignment:

• Short — 4-8 hours
• No boilerplate for infrastructure code (frameworks setup, database setup, etc)
• Has skeleton of the project
• One application/module or 2-3 very small modules that interact with each other
• A detailed description of goals and high-level functionality. You’ll be surprised how many times I saw take-home assignments where the whole description fitted into one paragraph of text without anything else.

Bad assignments:

• Long — 8 hours or more
• Empty project
• Multiple applications/modules/projects
• High-level description without any API contracts/samples/sketches
• Requires specific general-purpose technology. I firmly believe that any engineer can start using technology that is new to them, let’s say MongoDB, after 1 day of studying documentation. But focusing exclusively on MongoDB in take-home assignments and not allowing a candidate to make their own decision and to select technology that they are comfortable with, will lead to overtime and frustration.

The main principle here is that in real-life scenarios things like API contracts, UI sketches, data storage designs, library choices are up to discussion and challenging. Here we want to focus on the ability to create efficient, readable, extendable, and testable code.

Dealing With Ambiguity #

Before the start of the assignment ask your recruiter for a contact of an engineer who will review it .

Send them your questions about parts that you have doubts about. For example, if you need extra data for the demo you can ask your reviewers about providing an extended dataset or if it is OK to create this dataset yourself.

Ask about what parts of the project can be simplified to reduce the task time. For example, if it is OK to use a text file instead of a database.

Second important advice — document your assumptions. Many parts of an application can be implemented in various ways. Describe why you chose this implementation and what other alternative you thought about. Do it in code comments and in the Readme file if it is an important part of the project.

When you do a coding or system design interview, assumption discussion is done online and you can just talk about it. For take-home assignments, it’s more efficient to use asynchronous communication practices .

Providing Clarity #

Make sure that your reviewers can easily understand how your application works and quickly build and run it.

• Check that it compiles and runs .
• Include a single Readme file with instructions.
• Describe your solution and highlight the main parts of the infrastructure and architecture. For example, It uses MongoDB for storage, Spock for unit tests, and data is processed in TweetEventHandler class .
• List prerequisites and dependencies required for launch.
• Provide working command to start the project . Especially useful if your application depends on input parameters and environment variables, and if you want to be able to change some values.
• Put it into the Docker container.

Review and Follow-ups #

After you have submitted your solution, usually there are two ways it’s going to be evaluated: reviewers will check it and proceed to the next stage, or you will be invited to discuss your project.

It can take up to 2-3 weeks before your submission and your meeting, so it is easy to forget the details of your project. Before the review section, go through your project once more, and make sure that you remember what you have done and why.

Go through your notes and comments, and check again — how does the whole thing work, what assumptions did you make, and what are the pros and cons of your approaches.

The most popular question is What would you have changed if you had more time? You can start building up your vision of the ideal project from it, describe your simplifications and propose possible improvements.

Expect to hear two types of questions: how to improve the current solution and how to make it work in real life .

When talking about the improvement of the current solution expect to be asked:

• Alternative and more efficient algorithms and data structures
• Dealing with memory limits
• Concurrent execution
• Input validation

And for the real-life-scenario questions:

• What technologies you would choose for a production-ready implementation
• How would you deploy and monitor its work
• What would be the SLA of this project
• How to scale this project
• How to secure sensitive data
• How to recover from errors

And so on. This stage often switches to a more high-level discussion about system architecture.

Conclusion #

While take-home assignments receive a lot of criticism, and often it is well deserved, you can still encounter it in many companies.

The important thing to remember is that almost always it will not be the last section in your interview process. It is usually placed in the first half of the whole road and serves as a screening tool or as an opening for the system design/architecture session for mid and senior positions.

Focus on communication, suitable algorithms and data structures, pro and con analysis, identifying bottlenecks, and think about how would you apply those principles if you were developing a production-ready application.

Less noise, more data. Get the biggest data report on software developer careers in South Africa.

How OfferZen Uses Take-home Assignments to Build a Great Tech Team

19 August 2022 , by Nic Botes

How you assess developers’ technical ability in the interview process is an essential part of the candidate experience. Here’s how we use the take-home assignment at OfferZen to help us find the best people for our tech team.

What is a take-home assignment?

The take-home assignment is a standardised technical assessment that a candidate completes in their own time. Developers of all seniorities are given the same task to gauge their level of understanding and decision-making abilities. The assignment is open-ended but is practical and has clear guidelines.

For example, a take-home assignment could involve asking a candidate to build a new web application and integrate it with a product’s API.

Why use a take-home assignment?

Testing a developer’s technical ability is a necessary part of any hiring process and is essential to building high-quality products and an awesome team.

A bad hire is incredibly costly to the team and hinders your ability to move quickly — however, this goes both ways. Hiring someone that wouldn't be successful in the role isn’t fair to them, either. Your success is tied to their success.

There are many options for testing tech skills, including online coding tests and whiteboard interviews. That can make it hard to choose the most effective assessment.

Developers in both South Africa and the Netherlands rate take-home assignments as the most effective way to test their skills, although most companies use online coding tests and technical interviews.

Each type of assessment has its benefits and drawbacks, but the take-home assignment gives us a clear indication if a candidate is technically up to scratch as well as how they might work with our team.

That said, the type of assessment you use in your hiring process shouldn’t be set in stone. It’s good practice to regularly evaluate your tech assessment process and decide if it’s still the best fit for your team, the candidate experience, and if you’re getting the most out of this step in your hiring process.

The benefits of the take-home assignment

Accurately assess tech ability.

A take-home assignment gives you insight into the candidate’s way of thinking by showing you how they approach a practical problem. It can also show where they are in their developer journey. Most importantly, it’s a more realistic approach to assessing performance in the actual workplace.

A take-home assignment reduces the pressure of having to work against the clock in front of others. Our candidate feedback also suggests it’s just more fun to complete and gives them a better idea of what it will be like to work for us.

On top of that, an engaging assignment provides a jumping-off point for technical discussions in subsequent interviews.

Testing for soft skills

A take-home aissgnment also reveals a lot about a developer’s soft skills. We like to use it as a point of discussion in the follow-up interview with the team.

A candidate’s reaction to the feedback you provide is useful for gauging how receptive they are to learning, as well as how they will communicate with your team and build relationships.

On the business side, a candidate taking overly long to complete the assignment could indicate that they don’t connect with the work or that there are other opportunities they’re more enthusiastic about. This can help identify better candidates in your pipeline.

How to design and rate the take-home assignment

Step 1: create a clear, relevant task.

We inform the candidate that a take-home assignment is a part of our process from the first interview, so that they know what’s coming if they’re successful.

The assignment should be relevant to the work your company does so that the candidate gets a good idea of what it’ll be like working for you. You also want to ensure that the brief is clear and the candidate knows what’s expected of them. This will differ depending on the seniority level of the role.

The tech stack you ask candidates to use often depends on the market. If there are many developers that match the exact job specification, you can afford to be more prescriptive. If not, it might be a sign to widen the net (for example, telling candidates they can use any JavaScript stack instead of a specific framework). That said, try to keep the tech stack as close as possible to what you use in the business. The goal, after all, is to find someone that can do the actual job.

Provide a clear time-frame in which you expect them to complete the assessment, and keep it as short as possible. A too-lengthy interview process ranks among the top five pain points for developers in South Africa and the Netherlands . Given how in-demand developers are, they likely have assignments from other companies that demand less of their time.

We ask candidates to set aside four hours’ time to complete the assignment. This is a good timeframe to keep the candidate’s energy up, as well as give us an indication of their skills and attention to detail.

Step 2: Review the work

When the test is complete, give it to the rest of the tech team to review against the role’s scorecard . Our team’s feedback heavily influences whether we advance the candidate or not.

Here’s how one of our hiring managers explains the importance of this step:

“I'm relying on the feedback of the people reviewing the test to gauge the candidate’s technical ability, depending on what the role is. For example, we are looking for senior people at the moment. So I'm looking for feedback that says that this person really knew what they needed to do, and that their work is easily understandable. If it's a senior role, they'll be working with juniors. It doesn't help they do things that a junior probably won't understand. The insights that I gain, or the amount of trust that I put in the people reviewing it, is equally as important as the test itself.

Nick van Noordwyk, Engineering Manager at OfferZen

Step 3: Discuss the assignment with the developer

Once the project has been scored, the next step is to invite successful candidates back to discuss the assignment. We discuss this in a team interview setting.

A few useful questions to ask include:

• How long did this assignment take you and where did you spend most of your time?
• What tradeoffs did you make given you had limited time to complete the assignment?
• Given an extra hour, what would you focus on?
• What would you do differently or improve in your solution?
• What was your thinking around using X rather than Y?
• Do you have any feedback on this assignment? For example: What did you enjoy? What could be better? Which aspects were unclear?

It’s just as important to give feedback to unsuccessful candidates. Not receiving any feedback is also among the top five pain points in the hiring process for developers in South Africa and the Netherlands .

In our process, one of the hiring partners from our HR/People team will gather the team’s feedback from the scorecard and presents it back to the candidate. Some developers take the feedback and want to improve their assignment by incorporating the feedback they received.

Step 4: Decide whether to continue the interview process

The insights you’ve gained from your team’s review of the developer’s work and the discussion with them will help you to decide if they’ll move to the next stage of the interview process.

In our case, that’s typically a team interview, where we give the wider team the chance to interview the candidate, discuss their assignment, and get a variety of perspectives on the candidate. Lastly, we have a simulation day , where the goal is to work with the candidate on a practical task and simulate what a typical day on the job would look like.

Thanks to OfferZen team member Nick van Noordwyk, who contributed to this article.

• The Ultimate Developer Hiring Guide . This guide covers every aspect of the tech hiring process, from sending the first message, to interviewing and onboarding developers.
• How We Conduct a Screening Interview with Developers at OfferZen
• How we Create Role Scorecards at OfferZen When Hiring
• How We Conduct Reference Checks at OfferZen When Hiring
• How OfferZen Runs Simulation Days To Grow an Epic Team

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The Take-Home Design Exercise

edition e1.0.3

You’re reading an excerpt of Land Your Dream Design Job , a book by Dan Shilov. Filled with hard-won, personal insights, it is a comprehensive guide to landing a product design role in a startup, agency, or tech company, and covers the entire design interview process from beginning to end, for experienced and aspriring designers. Purchase the book to support the author and the ad-free Holloway reading experience. You get instant digital access, commentary and future updates, and a high-quality PDF download.

As I mentioned previously, design exercises are not without fault, and as a candidate you always have a choice whether or not to accept one. Sometimes companies allow you to swap one design exercise for another—for example, instead of the take-home exercise, doing a whiteboard challenge.

Or you can choose to forego the design exercise altogether and end the interview—sometimes this is an option if you’re interviewing at other places and this one isn’t worth your time, and they’re not budging on pushing back the timeline.

​ caution ​ Beware of companies that try to get free work out of you via a design exercise. The design exercise should be different from their business and the deliverable shouldn’t be a fully coded concept that can be implemented. That said, the companies who have challenges that are similar to their business aren’t necessarily trying to get free work out of you. Sometimes they don’t know how to evaluate designers and therefore they create a challenge similar to their business because they’re the domain experts.

At the end of the day if you have concerns or suggestions—these are all great points to bring up with you recruiter. Try to better understand why the company is doing a take home exercise and what they’re trying to achieve. Some companies are also starting to compensate their candidates for the design challenge thus making this interview type a little more palatable.

If you do choose to accept this challenge, you can play to your strengths by highlighting your potential in practice— that is, if you weren’t encumbered by constraints, what would your work look like? Maybe your current job didn’t offer you the right environment to prove yourself, or you think your portfolio isn’t an accurate representation of what you can do now. It happens. Now’s your chance to show off those skills.

Design Exercise Format and Criteria

Typically, candidates are given a few days to a week to complete the take-home assignment. Usually recruiters warn candidates not to spend more than “a few hours on it,” but in reality many candidates spend a fairly significant amount of time. After all, if you really want to differentiate yourself, you have to put in the work.

So you’ve got a design exercise on your hands and the clock is ticking. To make sure your solution is adequate, you’ll need to make sure you understand the evaluation criteria. Every company will vary, but typically they look for:

Process. How you approach and solve ambiguous problems.

Craft. Strong interaction design and visual design work delivered in a short amount of time.

Creativity. Generating divergent and out-of-the-ordinary ideas quickly.

Prioritization. Converging on critical concepts that lead to impact.

Sometimes companies also use different types of design exercise formats when they want to zero in on a particular skill. For example, some may focus heavily on visual design aspects, while others may want you to focus more on interaction design. Typically this will be specified in the design exercise prompt.

And yet some companies may not have a rigorous process established (usually in startups) and they may not really know what they’re looking for in an answer. These can be the toughest take-homes to crack, but usually, following the design process to a tee and showing how your process has yielded new and interesting solutions helps put them at ease.

Nine Principles for a Successful Design Exercise

There are no shortcuts, but you can increase your chances by:

Practicing. If you’ve never done a design exercise, practice by finding a problem you’re interested in. Give yourself a deadline, write a prompt, do it in the allotted time, and give yourself an objective evaluation.

Understanding context and questions. Get to know the constraints and how your work will be evaluated.

Going above and beyond. After understanding the baseline requirements, see how you can exceed expectations. As Paul Graham says, “The best protection is always working on hard problems.”

Letting the narrative guide your presentation. It’s not about the technology or the process—it’s about how all the work you’ve done helps the customer lead a better life.

Showing and curating process. Generate lots of ideas and be deliberate in what you focus on. If it doesn’t make your narrative stronger, leave it.

Talking to customers. Actually talk to people. Yes, this will be a biased convenience sample, but having rough customer feedback is better than none at all. Scrappiness is a virtue.

Synthesizing findings. Show the meaning you’ve extracted from disparate data sources to frame the problem accurately.

Treating it like work. Imagine you’re already working at this company. How would you approach this challenge?

Delighting the client. When your foundation is solid, can you add a cherry on top that leaves interviewers in awe? Or in the words of Ueno, “When someone asks you for a coffee, bring the best one you can, but always add a piece of chocolate.”

Start with Context

OK, you have your design exercise prompt. What should you do first? Since this is a high-stakes project, it’s important to get context up-front to save time by executing in the right direction.

What Is the Final Deliverable?

What are they looking for? Is this a mobile app, a sitemap, a research brief, or a desktop app? Are they looking for you to show your skills in interaction design, information architecture, research, visual design? This should be clear from the prompt.

​ important ​ When you’re working through a design exercise, know when to take shortcuts and know when to go bespoke. Creating every asset from scratch may take a long time and may not be necessary.

What’s Unclear?

Even with clear prompts you’re still bound to have questions. That’s a good sign. Generate a list—reread the prompt and think how the answers can help you move faster when you’re heads down on a challenge.

How Collaborative Do They Want to Be?

Interviewers might be willing or expect to provide feedback during the course of your work. You should both be on the same page as to how often you can reach out, to whom, and what feedback you will get and when.

When Is the Deliverable Due?

Structure the deadline to your advantage. When I had a lull in work, it was easy for me to focus intensely on the design exercise to get it done. Other times I’ve taken a day off or pushed back on the start date of the exercise so I could work on it over the weekend.

​ important ​ You only get to do the design exercise once, so make sure your submission is the best it can be given the timeline. If you are employed but don’t feel like you have enough mental energy to take on a design challenge, take a day or two off. Design exercises are already hard; don’t put yourself in an impossible position of running out of time.

What Are Your Options?

Design exercises are time intensive—some companies offer the choice of a whiteboard challenge instead. I took this option when I was already doing two design exercises. This saved me time—while delivering high-quality work for the other two, the third interviewers felt they got everything that they needed from the whiteboard.

How Will You Present Your Work?

Usually, at the end of the design exercise you’ll present at their office. Typically, to save time your presentation will be part of your final interview . If possible, try to get a sense of what you’ll be working with: their room set up, monitor, seating, and so on. It’s always good to know your context and be prepared with backup in case their tech fails.

Real-World Take-Home Design Exercise Solution 13 minutes, 11 links

Here is a sample design exercise solution that I completed a few years ago. This presentation (as well as the rest of the interview) helped not only secure my offer but led to a higher design level than I anticipated and a higher salary as well. The prompt asked to design a car dashboard for an autonomous vehicle. For this exercise I didn’t have that much time (about five days) so I had to skip my usual approach of asking many questions up-front and started working right away.

As is usual with any design briefs, I began by reframing the problem. Instead of “designing a car dashboard,” I wanted to think about the experience broadly—from the car’s interior to its exterior and how the car can be part of a larger ecosystem. I sketched a few different directions before settling on one, which I fully fleshed out, and lastly, I sneaked in a surprise at the end of my presentation.

Looking at Analogous Domains for Inspiration

5 Examples of Take-Home Tasks for Different Roles

Assigning take-home tasks when hiring is much like marmite, coriander, or Hawaiian pizza. Your candidates will either love it or hate it.

The ‘love it’ camp likely welcomes the opportunity to showcase their skills and appreciate the time to think it through versus answering questions on the spot in an interview.

However, the ‘hate it’ group sees it as doing work for free, might already have portfolios of work that give a much fairer picture of their experience level, and resent the infringement on their personal time (regardless of how this might be their dream job).

What we can learn from this dichotomy is that while a take-home assignment is not right for every role, it’s still worth it for some. To figure out if it’s a fit for the role you’re hiring for, let’s look at five good examples of take-home tasks that your candidates will (hopefully) love.

TL;DR — Key Takeaways

A take-home assignment is an important part of the interview process that focuses on candidates crafting and completing real-world tasks .

Incorporating a take-home assignment will give your organization better insight and skill observation over candidates. However, job seekers may see take-home tests as time-consuming, exploitative, or manipulative.

The perfect take-home assignment should be structured around providing the candidate with clarity about the role, respecting their time, and ensuring consistent testing criteria.

Toggl Hire introduced homework tasks in our skills assessment library! It’s never been easier to raise the quality of your hires with reliable proof of competence.

What are take-home tasks?

A take-home assignment is given to candidates during the interview process to complete in their own time and shows the hiring manager how the job seeker is able to complete a task.

These assignments generally consist of coding tests for developers , presentations for upper-level management, and campaigns for marketers. They’re given to candidates after the first interview round. The success will determine if the candidate makes it to the second round.

Pros and cons of a take-home assignment

Obviously, there are pros and cons to using a take-home assignment, right? Of course! So let’s go over the big ones.

• Skill observation : It allows the hiring company to understand the candidate’s skills in action and their thought process.

• Insight : The take-home interview assignment will allow the candidate to have a better understanding of the position, break any key assumptions, and what the company expects of them.

• Supplemental information : If done early in the interview process, an interview assignment allows the candidate’s skills to do the talking as opposed to the hiring manager only relying on the resume.

• Less pressure : Because a Q&A interview can be a pressure cooker, the take-home assignment makes the interviewing candidate feel more at ease.

• Time-consuming : A hiring team may claim the assignment will only take several hours to prepare and complete, but any interview assignment over more than an hour is cutting into the candidate’s personal time and current job.

• Ethical concerns and lost earnings : Asking a candidate to complete an unpaid work assignment can be seen as unethical and equivalent to unpaid labor. Some companies may even go so far as to steal the ideas of the candidate, use them, and not give credit or compensate the candidate.

• Limited personal evaluation : While the interview take-home assignment can assess a candidate’s skill set, it may not capture important aspects such as personality and behavior.

How to structure a take-home task

Creating a take-home assignment that strikes the perfect balance of helpful but not exploitative can be tricky. Regardless of what kind of take-home task or homework assignment you’re creating for hiring, it’s crucial for hiring managers to approach their creation with careful thought and attention.

Your hiring team will need to consider all of the following:

What are the common mistakes?

It’s normal to make mistakes, and learning from them can help you hire better, faster, and more fair.

So, let’s explore common blunders to steer clear of when designing and implementing a take-home assignment during the interview process, ensuring fairness and an effective evaluation process that respects candidates’ time and effort.

• Appropriate Task Alignment : Avoid assigning tasks that aren’t directly relevant to the role.

• Reasonable Task Length : Create a take-home assignment that can be completed within a reasonable timeframe.

• Providing Sufficient Context : Avoid requesting candidates to answer or solve company-specific problems without providing adequate information.

• Ethical Treatment of Work Requests : Refrain from asking candidates to produce work for free that the company may later exploit, such as writing a blog post for publication.

• Timely Introduction of Tasks : Including a take-home assignment as an early screening requirement can discourage candidates. Do this after their first interview.

• Constructive Feedback : Don’t miss the opportunity to provide candidates with constructive feedback on their completed tasks.

• Balancing Mandatory and Optional Tasks : Avoid making the take-home assignment mandatory for all applicants, as circumstances may prevent some candidates from completing it.

• Conduct post-assignment interviews : Once you have received a few tasks back from candidates, we highly recommend that you schedule a take-home assignment interview to better understand any pain points the job seeker may have had.

5 thorough examples of great take-home assignments

Now that you better understand the how , the when , and the why of take-home assignments, we’ll show you five examples. The example take-home assignments will cover tasks for:

• Developer – fixing a broken site
• Product manager – redesigning a feature
• Marketing lead – creating a marketing campaign
• Designer – redesigning the onboarding flow
• Customer success executive – running a mock QBR

Example #1: Take-home task for a developer role

This challenge is geared towards a mid-level developer who can identify and fix errors and optimize the code of an eCommerce website. The goal here is to see how well the candidates understand debugging techniques, approach problem-solving, and how they will communicate with the rest of their team.

Task: Fixing a Broken E-commerce Site

Introduction

Your mission is to debug the broken e-commerce site, fix errors, and ensure it runs smoothly. Customers are unable to place orders due to the significant increase in errors.

Requirements

• Identify and fix all of the errors on the site.
• Ensure that customers can place orders without any problems.
• Optimize the site to improve its performance.
• Document your approach and explain your reasoning behind your changes.

Instructions

• Clone the repository from the following Github URL: https://github.com/debugging-challenge/e-commerce-site.git .
• Install all the dependencies by running npm install .
• Start the development server by running npm start .
• Debug and fix all errors.
• Document your approach and explain your reasoning in a README file.

Your submission will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Identification and fixing of all errors
• Site optimization
• Completeness of documentation and reasoning
• Code cleanliness and adherence to best practices
• Clarity and organization of documentation
• Submit your code as a ZIP file.
• Include the README file that explains your approach and reasoning.
• Send the ZIP file to the hiring manager by email.

Example #2: Challenge for a product manager

Our next example focuses on testing product manager candidates on how they approach problem-solving, communicate with customers, and conduct user research while implementing open-ended questions.

In a sense, how well they’ll actually do their jobs in a product management role. This assignment is bound to produce better product management interviews for your organization.

Task: Redesigning Filma’s Collaboration Features

You are the Product Manager for collaboration features at Filma, a leading collaborative design platform. Recent feedback from customers has shown that they are not happy with how collaboration features work on the site. Your mission in this product management task is to redesign the collaboration features to better meet customer needs and preferences.

• Review the problem statement and develop a list of open-ended questions to better understand the issue.
• Conduct user research to validate assumptions and identify pain points and user needs.
• Develop a new design for collaboration features.
• Prioritize features and functionality based on customer needs and business goals.
• Outline the implementation plan.
• Document your approach and explain your reasoning.
• Review the problem statement and develop a list of open-ended questions to better understand the issue and customer needs.
• Conduct (mock) user research to validate assumptions and identify pain points and user needs. Schedule a call with a team member to role-play a customer interview. Include data points such as user feedback, user behaviour, and competitor analysis in your research.
• Develop a new design for collaboration features. Identify the key features and functionality of the new design, and prioritize them based on customer needs and business goals.
• Outline the implementation plan. Include a timeline, resources required, and technical feasibility.
• Document your approach and explain your reasoning in a presentation or document.
• Quality of open-ended questions and user research.
• Soundness of the new design and prioritization of features and functionality.
• Clarity and feasibility of the product management implementation plan.
• Completeness of documentation and reasoning.
• Clarity and organization of presentation or document.
• Submit your open-ended questions, presentation, or document as a PDF or PowerPoint file.
• Send the file to the hiring manager by email.

Example #3: Testing marketing managers

Let’s now explore an exciting marketing challenge that aims to find a candidate who can skillfully design an innovative user acquisition growth loop. This task involves leveraging valuable market research insights to craft a robust strategy that showcases a deep understanding of growth concepts.

Task: Designing a User Acquisition Growth Loop

You are the Marketing Lead at a Product-Led Growth (PLG) company that provides a collaboration tool for remote teams. Your team has conducted market research to identify target customer segments. Your mission is to design a new user acquisition growth loop based on the insights gained.

• Review the market research insights provided by your team.
• Design a new user acquisition growth loop, with a structured approach, based on the insights gained.
• Identify metrics to measure the effectiveness of the growth loop.
• Review the market research insights provided by your team. Use the insights to identify areas where a new user acquisition growth loop can be designed.
• Design a new user acquisition growth loop based on the insights gained. The growth loop should identify key stages, such as awareness, interest, and activation, and prioritize them based on customer needs and business goals.
• Identify metrics to measure the effectiveness of the growth loop. The metrics should be tied to the key stages of the growth loop and should be used to track progress and optimize the loop over time.
• Soundness of the new user acquisition growth loop and prioritization of key stages
• Creativity and effectiveness of the growth loop design
• Identification and feasibility of metrics to measure the effectiveness of the growth loop
• Clarity and organization of presentation or document
• Submit your presentation or document as a PDF or PowerPoint file.

Example #4: Take-home test for designers

This challenge is centered around an intriguing product design assessment designed to narrow down a candidate who excels in analyzing user recording sessions and crafting an improved onboarding flow design.

Task: Redesigning the Onboarding Flow Introduction

You are a Product Designer at a web-based Product-Led Growth (PLG) company that provides a collaboration tool for remote teams. Your team has recorded user sessions for the past 3 months to help identify areas of improvement for the onboarding flow. Your mission is to redesign the onboarding flow to improve user engagement and activation based on the insights gathered.

• Analyze the user recording sessions to identify user needs and preferences.
• Develop a new design for the onboarding flow.
• Prioritize design features based on user needs and business goals.
• Ensure that the design aligns with the company’s minimalist, intuitive design philosophy.
• Analyze the user recording sessions to identify user needs and preferences. Use the insights gathered to identify areas for improvement in the onboarding flow.
• Develop a new design for the onboarding flow. Identify the key stages of the flow, and prioritize them based on user needs and business goals. Ensure that the design aligns with the company’s minimalist, intuitive design philosophy.
• Prioritize design features based on user needs and business goals. Identify the most important design features that will enhance user engagement and activation.
• Quality of analysis of user recording sessions and identification of user needs and preferences
• The soundness of the new onboarding flow design and prioritization of key stages
• Alignment with the company’s minimalist, intuitive design philosophy
• Creativity and effectiveness of the prioritized design features

Example #5: Testing customer succes

Our final challenge example focuses on a customer success assignment. The perfect candidate will showcase their expertise in defining success metrics for a simulated account, devising impactful tactics to drive feature adoption and enhance metrics, and effectively presenting their approach and results in a mock Quarterly Business Review (QBR) presentation.

Task: Driving Feature Adoption and Improving Metrics

You are a Customer Success Manager at a PLG company that provides a project management tool for remote teams. Your mission is to work with a mock account to define success metrics, develop tactics to drive feature adoption and improve metrics for Q2, culminating in a mock QBR presentation.

• Define success metrics for the mock account.
• Develop tactics to drive feature adoption and improve metrics.
• Document your approach and results in a mock QBR presentation.
• Define success metrics for the mock account. Assume that the mock account is a remote team of 20 people that uses your project management tool for all their projects. Assume that they have been using the tool for 6 months, and that they have expressed interest in increasing feature adoption and improving metrics related to on-time delivery, collaboration, and budget management. Use your own assumptions to define success metrics that measure the impact of the product on their business.
• Develop tactics to drive feature adoption and improve metrics. Use the success metrics to identify the actions needed to increase feature adoption and improve metrics, and assign responsibilities to your team. Use customer success best practices, such as regular check-ins and training sessions, to ensure that the tactics are on track and that the mock account is engaged and satisfied.
• Document your approach and results in a mock QBR presentation. Create a deck that’s less than 10 slides, with consistent title and object placement, fonts, font colors, and different ways of visualizing insights. Use the mock QBR presentation to realign on the mock account’s goals, review their performance, present the tactics and their impact on the success metrics, and recommend the next steps to improve product performance next quarter.
• Quality of success metrics defined for the mock account.
• Soundness of the tactics to drive feature adoption and improve metrics.
• Collaborative execution of the tactics with your team.
• Clarity, organization, and persuasiveness of the mock QBR presentation.
• Submit your mock QBR presentation as a PDF or PowerPoint file.

Try a Homework Assignment by Toggl Hire

Ready to add homework assignments to your hiring process? Our homework assessments provide invaluable insights for hiring managers evaluating candidates ‘ ability to solve job-specific assignments.

Designed to test the hands-on skills necessary for day-to-day work, these assessments offer a glimpse into a candidate’s potential future job performance . With over 500 pre-built tasks available in Toggl Hire’s library, you can quickly implement comprehensive tests that align with your hiring needs.

Toggl Hire’s homework assessments are highly flexible, allowing for either integration with other assessments or standalone use. Create your free account now to explore a few examples!

Juste loves investigating through writing. A copywriter by trade, she spent the last ten years in startups, telling stories and building marketing teams. She works at Toggl Hire and writes about how businesses can recruit really great people.

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Everyone struggles with homework sometimes, but if getting your homework done has become a chronic issue for you, then you may need a little extra help. That’s why we’ve written this article all about how to do homework. Once you’re finished reading it, you’ll know how to do homework (and have tons of new ways to motivate yourself to do homework)!

We’ve broken this article down into a few major sections. You’ll find:

• A diagnostic test to help you figure out why you’re struggling with homework
• A discussion of the four major homework problems students face, along with expert tips for addressing them
• A bonus section with tips for how to do homework fast

By the end of this article, you’ll be prepared to tackle whatever homework assignments your teachers throw at you .

So let’s get started!

How to Do Homework: Figure Out Your Struggles 

Sometimes it feels like everything is standing between you and getting your homework done. But the truth is, most people only have one or two major roadblocks that are keeping them from getting their homework done well and on time. 

The best way to figure out how to get motivated to do homework starts with pinpointing the issues that are affecting your ability to get your assignments done. That’s why we’ve developed a short quiz to help you identify the areas where you’re struggling. 

Take the quiz below and record your answers on your phone or on a scrap piece of paper. Keep in mind there are no wrong answers! 

1. You’ve just been assigned an essay in your English class that’s due at the end of the week. What’s the first thing you do?

A. Keep it in mind, even though you won’t start it until the day before it’s due  B. Open up your planner. You’ve got to figure out when you’ll write your paper since you have band practice, a speech tournament, and your little sister’s dance recital this week, too.  C. Groan out loud. Another essay? You could barely get yourself to write the last one!  D. Start thinking about your essay topic, which makes you think about your art project that’s due the same day, which reminds you that your favorite artist might have just posted to Instagram...so you better check your feed right now. 

2. Your mom asked you to pick up your room before she gets home from work. You’ve just gotten home from school. You decide you’ll tackle your chores: 

A. Five minutes before your mom walks through the front door. As long as it gets done, who cares when you start?  B. As soon as you get home from your shift at the local grocery store.  C. After you give yourself a 15-minute pep talk about how you need to get to work.  D. You won’t get it done. Between texts from your friends, trying to watch your favorite Netflix show, and playing with your dog, you just lost track of time! 

3. You’ve signed up to wash dogs at the Humane Society to help earn money for your senior class trip. You: 

A. Show up ten minutes late. You put off leaving your house until the last minute, then got stuck in unexpected traffic on the way to the shelter.  B. Have to call and cancel at the last minute. You forgot you’d already agreed to babysit your cousin and bake cupcakes for tomorrow’s bake sale.  C. Actually arrive fifteen minutes early with extra brushes and bandanas you picked up at the store. You’re passionate about animals, so you’re excited to help out! D. Show up on time, but only get three dogs washed. You couldn’t help it: you just kept getting distracted by how cute they were!

4. You have an hour of downtime, so you decide you’re going to watch an episode of The Great British Baking Show. You: 

A. Scroll through your social media feeds for twenty minutes before hitting play, which means you’re not able to finish the whole episode. Ugh! You really wanted to see who was sent home!  B. Watch fifteen minutes until you remember you’re supposed to pick up your sister from band practice before heading to your part-time job. No GBBO for you!  C. You finish one episode, then decide to watch another even though you’ve got SAT studying to do. It’s just more fun to watch people make scones.  D. Start the episode, but only catch bits and pieces of it because you’re reading Twitter, cleaning out your backpack, and eating a snack at the same time.

5. Your teacher asks you to stay after class because you’ve missed turning in two homework assignments in a row. When she asks you what’s wrong, you say: 

A. You planned to do your assignments during lunch, but you ran out of time. You decided it would be better to turn in nothing at all than submit unfinished work.  B. You really wanted to get the assignments done, but between your extracurriculars, family commitments, and your part-time job, your homework fell through the cracks.  C. You have a hard time psyching yourself to tackle the assignments. You just can’t seem to find the motivation to work on them once you get home.  D. You tried to do them, but you had a hard time focusing. By the time you realized you hadn’t gotten anything done, it was already time to turn them in. 

Like we said earlier, there are no right or wrong answers to this quiz (though your results will be better if you answered as honestly as possible). Here’s how your answers break down: 

• If your answers were mostly As, then your biggest struggle with doing homework is procrastination. 
• If your answers were mostly Bs, then your biggest struggle with doing homework is time management. 
• If your answers were mostly Cs, then your biggest struggle with doing homework is motivation. 
• If your answers were mostly Ds, then your biggest struggle with doing homework is getting distracted. 

Now that you’ve identified why you’re having a hard time getting your homework done, we can help you figure out how to fix it! Scroll down to find your core problem area to learn more about how you can start to address it. 

And one more thing: you’re really struggling with homework, it’s a good idea to read through every section below. You may find some additional tips that will help make homework less intimidating. 

How to Do Homework When You’re a Procrastinator  

Merriam Webster defines “procrastinate” as “to put off intentionally and habitually.” In other words, procrastination is when you choose to do something at the last minute on a regular basis. If you’ve ever found yourself pulling an all-nighter, trying to finish an assignment between periods, or sprinting to turn in a paper minutes before a deadline, you’ve experienced the effects of procrastination. 

If you’re a chronic procrastinator, you’re in good company. In fact, one study found that 70% to 95% of undergraduate students procrastinate when it comes to doing their homework. Unfortunately, procrastination can negatively impact your grades. Researchers have found that procrastination can lower your grade on an assignment by as much as five points ...which might not sound serious until you realize that can mean the difference between a B- and a C+. 

Procrastination can also negatively affect your health by increasing your stress levels , which can lead to other health conditions like insomnia, a weakened immune system, and even heart conditions. Getting a handle on procrastination can not only improve your grades, it can make you feel better, too! 

The big thing to understand about procrastination is that it’s not the result of laziness. Laziness is defined as being “disinclined to activity or exertion.” In other words, being lazy is all about doing nothing. But a s this Psychology Today article explains , procrastinators don’t put things off because they don’t want to work. Instead, procrastinators tend to postpone tasks they don’t want to do in favor of tasks that they perceive as either more important or more fun. Put another way, procrastinators want to do things...as long as it’s not their homework! 

3 Tips f or Conquering Procrastination 

Because putting off doing homework is a common problem, there are lots of good tactics for addressing procrastination. Keep reading for our three expert tips that will get your homework habits back on track in no time. 

#1: Create a Reward System

Like we mentioned earlier, procrastination happens when you prioritize other activities over getting your homework done. Many times, this happens because homework...well, just isn’t enjoyable. But you can add some fun back into the process by rewarding yourself for getting your work done. 

Here’s what we mean: let’s say you decide that every time you get your homework done before the day it’s due, you’ll give yourself a point. For every five points you earn, you’ll treat yourself to your favorite dessert: a chocolate cupcake! Now you have an extra (delicious!) incentive to motivate you to leave procrastination in the dust. 

If you’re not into cupcakes, don’t worry. Your reward can be anything that motivates you . Maybe it’s hanging out with your best friend or an extra ten minutes of video game time. As long as you’re choosing something that makes homework worth doing, you’ll be successful. 

#2: Have a Homework Accountability Partner 

If you’re having trouble getting yourself to start your homework ahead of time, it may be a good idea to call in reinforcements . Find a friend or classmate you can trust and explain to them that you’re trying to change your homework habits. Ask them if they’d be willing to text you to make sure you’re doing your homework and check in with you once a week to see if you’re meeting your anti-procrastination goals. 

Sharing your goals can make them feel more real, and an accountability partner can help hold you responsible for your decisions. For example, let’s say you’re tempted to put off your science lab write-up until the morning before it’s due. But you know that your accountability partner is going to text you about it tomorrow...and you don’t want to fess up that you haven’t started your assignment. A homework accountability partner can give you the extra support and incentive you need to keep your homework habits on track. 

#3: Create Your Own Due Dates 

If you’re a life-long procrastinator, you might find that changing the habit is harder than you expected. In that case, you might try using procrastination to your advantage! If you just can’t seem to stop doing your work at the last minute, try setting your own due dates for assignments that range from a day to a week before the assignment is actually due. 

Here’s what we mean. Let’s say you have a math worksheet that’s been assigned on Tuesday and is due on Friday. In your planner, you can write down the due date as Thursday instead. You may still put off your homework assignment until the last minute...but in this case, the “last minute” is a day before the assignment’s real due date . This little hack can trick your procrastination-addicted brain into planning ahead! 

If you feel like Kevin Hart in this meme, then our tips for doing homework when you're busy are for you. 

How to Do Homework When You’re too Busy

If you’re aiming to go to a top-tier college , you’re going to have a full plate. Because college admissions is getting more competitive, it’s important that you’re maintaining your grades , studying hard for your standardized tests , and participating in extracurriculars so your application stands out. A packed schedule can get even more hectic once you add family obligations or a part-time job to the mix. 

If you feel like you’re being pulled in a million directions at once, you’re not alone. Recent research has found that stress—and more severe stress-related conditions like anxiety and depression— are a major problem for high school students . In fact, one study from the American Psychological Association found that during the school year, students’ stress levels are higher than those of the adults around them. 

For students, homework is a major contributor to their overall stress levels . Many high schoolers have multiple hours of homework every night , and figuring out how to fit it into an already-packed schedule can seem impossible. 

3 Tips for Fitting Homework Into Your Busy Schedule

While it might feel like you have literally no time left in your schedule, there are still ways to make sure you’re able to get your homework done and meet your other commitments. Here are our expert homework tips for even the busiest of students. 

#1: Make a Prioritized To-Do List 

You probably already have a to-do list to keep yourself on track. The next step is to prioritize the items on your to-do list so you can see what items need your attention right away. 

Here’s how it works: at the beginning of each day, sit down and make a list of all the items you need to get done before you go to bed. This includes your homework, but it should also take into account any practices, chores, events, or job shifts you may have. Once you get everything listed out, it’s time to prioritize them using the labels A, B, and C. Here’s what those labels mean:

• A Tasks : tasks that have to get done—like showing up at work or turning in an assignment—get an A. 
• B Tasks : these are tasks that you would like to get done by the end of the day but aren’t as time sensitive. For example, studying for a test you have next week could be a B-level task. It’s still important, but it doesn’t have to be done right away.
• C Tasks: these are tasks that aren’t very important and/or have no real consequences if you don’t get them done immediately. For instance, if you’re hoping to clean out your closet but it’s not an assigned chore from your parents, you could label that to-do item with a C.

Prioritizing your to-do list helps you visualize which items need your immediate attention, and which items you can leave for later. A prioritized to-do list ensures that you’re spending your time efficiently and effectively, which helps you make room in your schedule for homework. So even though you might really want to start making decorations for Homecoming (a B task), you’ll know that finishing your reading log (an A task) is more important. 

#2: Use a Planner With Time Labels

Your planner is probably packed with notes, events, and assignments already. (And if you’re not using a planner, it’s time to start!) But planners can do more for you than just remind you when an assignment is due. If you’re using a planner with time labels, it can help you visualize how you need to spend your day.

A planner with time labels breaks your day down into chunks, and you assign tasks to each chunk of time. For example, you can make a note of your class schedule with assignments, block out time to study, and make sure you know when you need to be at practice. Once you know which tasks take priority, you can add them to any empty spaces in your day. 

Planning out how you spend your time not only helps you use it wisely, it can help you feel less overwhelmed, too . We’re big fans of planners that include a task list ( like this one ) or have room for notes ( like this one ). 

#3: Set Reminders on Your Phone 

If you need a little extra nudge to make sure you’re getting your homework done on time, it’s a good idea to set some reminders on your phone. You don’t need a fancy app, either. You can use your alarm app to have it go off at specific times throughout the day to remind you to do your homework. This works especially well if you have a set homework time scheduled. So if you’ve decided you’re doing homework at 6:00 pm, you can set an alarm to remind you to bust out your books and get to work. 

If you use your phone as your planner, you may have the option to add alerts, emails, or notifications to scheduled events . Many calendar apps, including the one that comes with your phone, have built-in reminders that you can customize to meet your needs. So if you block off time to do your homework from 4:30 to 6:00 pm, you can set a reminder that will pop up on your phone when it’s time to get started. 

This dog isn't judging your lack of motivation...but your teacher might. Keep reading for tips to help you motivate yourself to do your homework.

How to Do Homework When You’re Unmotivated 

At first glance, it may seem like procrastination and being unmotivated are the same thing. After all, both of these issues usually result in you putting off your homework until the very last minute. 

But there’s one key difference: many procrastinators are working, they’re just prioritizing work differently. They know they’re going to start their homework...they’re just going to do it later. 

Conversely, people who are unmotivated to do homework just can’t find the willpower to tackle their assignments. Procrastinators know they’ll at least attempt the homework at the last minute, whereas people who are unmotivated struggle with convincing themselves to do it at a ll. For procrastinators, the stress comes from the inevitable time crunch. For unmotivated people, the stress comes from trying to convince themselves to do something they don’t want to do in the first place. 

Here are some common reasons students are unmotivated in doing homework : 

• Assignments are too easy, too hard, or seemingly pointless 
• Students aren’t interested in (or passionate about) the subject matter
• Students are intimidated by the work and/or feels like they don’t understand the assignment 
• Homework isn’t fun, and students would rather spend their time on things that they enjoy 

To sum it up: people who lack motivation to do their homework are more likely to not do it at all, or to spend more time worrying about doing their homework than...well, actually doing it.

3 Tips for How to Get Motivated to Do Homework

The key to getting homework done when you’re unmotivated is to figure out what does motivate you, then apply those things to homework. It sounds tricky...but it’s pretty simple once you get the hang of it! Here are our three expert tips for motivating yourself to do your homework. 

#1: Use Incremental Incentives

When you’re not motivated, it’s important to give yourself small rewards to stay focused on finishing the task at hand. The trick is to keep the incentives small and to reward yourself often. For example, maybe you’re reading a good book in your free time. For every ten minutes you spend on your homework, you get to read five pages of your book. Like we mentioned earlier, make sure you’re choosing a reward that works for you! 

So why does this technique work? Using small rewards more often allows you to experience small wins for getting your work done. Every time you make it to one of your tiny reward points, you get to celebrate your success, which gives your brain a boost of dopamine . Dopamine helps you stay motivated and also creates a feeling of satisfaction when you complete your homework !  

#2: Form a Homework Group 

If you’re having trouble motivating yourself, it’s okay to turn to others for support. Creating a homework group can help with this. Bring together a group of your friends or classmates, and pick one time a week where you meet and work on homework together. You don’t have to be in the same class, or even taking the same subjects— the goal is to encourage one another to start (and finish!) your assignments. 

Another added benefit of a homework group is that you can help one another if you’re struggling to understand the material covered in your classes. This is especially helpful if your lack of motivation comes from being intimidated by your assignments. Asking your friends for help may feel less scary than talking to your teacher...and once you get a handle on the material, your homework may become less frightening, too. 

#3: Change Up Your Environment 

If you find that you’re totally unmotivated, it may help if you find a new place to do your homework. For example, if you’ve been struggling to get your homework done at home, try spending an extra hour in the library after school instead. The change of scenery can limit your distractions and give you the energy you need to get your work done. 

If you’re stuck doing homework at home, you can still use this tip. For instance, maybe you’ve always done your homework sitting on your bed. Try relocating somewhere else, like your kitchen table, for a few weeks. You may find that setting up a new “homework spot” in your house gives you a motivational lift and helps you get your work done. 

Social media can be a huge problem when it comes to doing homework. We have advice for helping you unplug and regain focus.

How to Do Homework When You’re Easily Distracted

We live in an always-on world, and there are tons of things clamoring for our attention. From friends and family to pop culture and social media, it seems like there’s always something (or someone!) distracting us from the things we need to do.

The 24/7 world we live in has affected our ability to focus on tasks for prolonged periods of time. Research has shown that over the past decade, an average person’s attention span has gone from 12 seconds to eight seconds . And when we do lose focus, i t takes people a long time to get back on task . One study found that it can take as long as 23 minutes to get back to work once we’ve been distracte d. No wonder it can take hours to get your homework done! 

3 Tips to Improve Your Focus

If you have a hard time focusing when you’re doing your homework, it’s a good idea to try and eliminate as many distractions as possible. Here are three expert tips for blocking out the noise so you can focus on getting your homework done. 

#1: Create a Distraction-Free Environment

Pick a place where you’ll do your homework every day, and make it as distraction-free as possible. Try to find a location where there won’t be tons of noise, and limit your access to screens while you’re doing your homework. Put together a focus-oriented playlist (or choose one on your favorite streaming service), and put your headphones on while you work. 

You may find that other people, like your friends and family, are your biggest distraction. If that’s the case, try setting up some homework boundaries. Let them know when you’ll be working on homework every day, and ask them if they’ll help you keep a quiet environment. They’ll be happy to lend a hand! 

#2: Limit Your Access to Technology 

We know, we know...this tip isn’t fun, but it does work. For homework that doesn’t require a computer, like handouts or worksheets, it’s best to put all your technology away . Turn off your television, put your phone and laptop in your backpack, and silence notifications on any wearable tech you may be sporting. If you listen to music while you work, that’s fine...but make sure you have a playlist set up so you’re not shuffling through songs once you get started on your homework. 

If your homework requires your laptop or tablet, it can be harder to limit your access to distractions. But it’s not impossible! T here are apps you can download that will block certain websites while you’re working so that you’re not tempted to scroll through Twitter or check your Facebook feed. Silence notifications and text messages on your computer, and don’t open your email account unless you absolutely have to. And if you don’t need access to the internet to complete your assignments, turn off your WiFi. Cutting out the online chatter is a great way to make sure you’re getting your homework done. 

#3: Set a Timer (the Pomodoro Technique)

Have you ever heard of the Pomodoro technique ? It’s a productivity hack that uses a timer to help you focus!

Here’s how it works: first, set a timer for 25 minutes. This is going to be your work time. During this 25 minutes, all you can do is work on whatever homework assignment you have in front of you. No email, no text messaging, no phone calls—just homework. When that timer goes off, you get to take a 5 minute break. Every time you go through one of these cycles, it’s called a “pomodoro.” For every four pomodoros you complete, you can take a longer break of 15 to 30 minutes.

The pomodoro technique works through a combination of boundary setting and rewards. First, it gives you a finite amount of time to focus, so you know that you only have to work really hard for 25 minutes. Once you’ve done that, you’re rewarded with a short break where you can do whatever you want. Additionally, tracking how many pomodoros you complete can help you see how long you’re really working on your homework. (Once you start using our focus tips, you may find it doesn’t take as long as you thought!)

Two Bonus Tips for How to Do Homework Fast

Even if you’re doing everything right, there will be times when you just need to get your homework done as fast as possible. (Why do teachers always have projects due in the same week? The world may never know.)

The problem with speeding through homework is that it’s easy to make mistakes. While turning in an assignment is always better than not submitting anything at all, you want to make sure that you’re not compromising quality for speed. Simply put, the goal is to get your homework done quickly and still make a good grade on the assignment! 

Here are our two bonus tips for getting a decent grade on your homework assignments , even when you’re in a time crunch. 

#1: Do the Easy Parts First 

This is especially true if you’re working on a handout with multiple questions. Before you start working on the assignment, read through all the questions and problems. As you do, make a mark beside the questions you think are “easy” to answer . 

Once you’ve finished going through the whole assignment, you can answer these questions first. Getting the easy questions out of the way as quickly as possible lets you spend more time on the trickier portions of your homework, which will maximize your assignment grade. 

(Quick note: this is also a good strategy to use on timed assignments and tests, like the SAT and the ACT !) 

#2: Pay Attention in Class 

Homework gets a lot easier when you’re actively learning the material. Teachers aren’t giving you homework because they’re mean or trying to ruin your weekend... it’s because they want you to really understand the course material. Homework is designed to reinforce what you’re already learning in class so you’ll be ready to tackle harder concepts later.

When you pay attention in class, ask questions, and take good notes, you’re absorbing the information you’ll need to succeed on your homework assignments. (You’re stuck in class anyway, so you might as well make the most of it!) Not only will paying attention in class make your homework less confusing, it will also help it go much faster, too.

What’s Next?

If you’re looking to improve your productivity beyond homework, a good place to begin is with time management. After all, we only have so much time in a day...so it’s important to get the most out of it! To get you started, check out this list of the 12 best time management techniques that you can start using today.

You may have read this article because homework struggles have been affecting your GPA. Now that you’re on the path to homework success, it’s time to start being proactive about raising your grades. This article teaches you everything you need to know about raising your GPA so you can

Now you know how to get motivated to do homework...but what about your study habits? Studying is just as critical to getting good grades, and ultimately getting into a good college . We can teach you how to study bette r in high school. (We’ve also got tons of resources to help you study for your ACT and SAT exams , too!)

These recommendations are based solely on our knowledge and experience. If you purchase an item through one of our links, PrepScholar may receive a commission.

Ashley Sufflé Robinson has a Ph.D. in 19th Century English Literature. As a content writer for PrepScholar, Ashley is passionate about giving college-bound students the in-depth information they need to get into the school of their dreams.

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Conducting Take-Home (Assignment) Assessments

Follow the steps below to complete an Take-Home exam assessment:

• Open the Take-Home (Assignment) assessment.

• Complete the Take-Home assessment in MS Word or on paper. Note: MS Word documents needs to be saved as a PDF document and paper based answers needs to be scanned in to a combined PDF document.

• Note the file requirements such as:
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The following video will guide you through all the steps listed above:

  https://youtu.be/zGI7kqymXgQ  

Josh Lowe rejoins Rays’ active roster, Jonathan Aranda sent down

• Marc Topkin Times staff

MIAMI — Outfielder Josh Lowe was reinstated to the Rays’ active roster Monday, and both he and the team are hoping this is a lasting relationship.

Lowe missed the first 34 games of the season recovering from a right oblique strain. Then after playing in 13 games, he felt tightness in the same area during a May 22 game and left in the second inning.

That led to him going back on the injured list, and missing nine more games. Lowe and the Rays said the second injury was not as severe, and expected a short absence. The lefty swinger went 4-for-12 in a three-game rehab stint for Triple-A Durham over the weekend.

In his 14 games for the Rays, Lowe hit .240 with two homers, three RBIs and a .736 OPS. The Rays had high expectations for him this season after his 2023 breakout performance, when he hit .292 with 20 homers, 83 RBIs, 32 steals and an .835 OPS.

To make room for Lowe on the active roster, the Rays optioned lefty-hitting infielder Jonathan Aranda back to Triple A. Aranda, who missed the first 42 games with his own spring injury (broken right ring finger), hit .213 in 18 games, with one homer, three RBIs and a .608 OPS, playing mostly at first base and DH.

Though Aranda was projected going into the season to play a key role in the lineup, Richie Palacios emerged as a more productive, and versatile, lefty hitting option. Palacios in 51 games has hit .262 with four homers, 12 RBIs and a .724 OPS while playing strong defense at second base and the corner outfield spots.

The Rays facing lefty starters in their next three games may have also been a factor in the decision. Right-handed-hitting outfielder Jonny DeLuca, who has cooled considerably since his hot start and .617 OPS, could have been an option to be sent down. Another factor could be the return of infielder Taylor Walls, which is expected soon.

Pep in his step

Ryan Pepiot has a couple reasons to feel good going into Tuesday’s start against the Marlins.

After showing some rust in his May 22 start following a two week-plus layoff after being hit on the left leg by a batted ball, Pepiot was sharp in his most recent outing (5 2/3 innings, two runs, three hits, one walk, seven strikeouts on May 29 vs. Oakland) and expects that to carry over.

“Stuff-wise, I feel good,” Pepiot said. “Health-wise, I don’t feel anything anymore. I’ve got a little callus over where it hit, but I don’t think that’s going to go away anytime soon. But I don’t feel it.

“It was good to get back out there. The second one felt a little more comfortable. So just build off that and continue going forward.”

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As much as Pepiot didn’t want to use the layoff as an excuse for his May 22 return (four innings, three runs, two hits, four walks, three strikeouts), it did have an impact.

“You take 15 days off, and you try to do as much as you can to simulate game reps,” he said. “But until you get somebody that’s in the box, and they’re actually swinging, everything’s different. There’s different speed to it, and the pace.

“As much as you can try to simulate a setting, you can’t exactly simulate a game setting 100%. So, first (game back) didn’t go exactly how I wanted it to. The last one I thought I threw the ball really well, and just going to build off that. I feel good, and I’m ready to go on Tuesday.”

The other reference point for Pepiot is his previous, and only, appearance at loanDepot Park. Pitching for the Dodgers, last Sept. 7, he took a no-hitter into the seventh inning and ended up allowing just one single over seven, with zero walks and three strikeouts.

“It went pretty good,” said Pepiot, claiming to not be superstitious but preferring to not go into details.

Zach Eflin is expected to be reinstated from the injured list and start Wednesday’s game against the Marlins. … Class A infielder Tre’ Morgan and Double A lefty Ian Seymour were named the Rays’ minor-league player and pitcher of the month. … Right-hander Shane Baz on Sunday threw four shutout innings for Durham, the first scoreless outing of six he has thrown for the Bulls between his rehab assignment and being optioned to Triple A.

Sign up for the Sports Today newsletter to get daily updates on the Bucs, Rays, Lightning and college football across Florida.

Never miss out on the latest with your favorite Tampa Bay sports teams. Follow our coverage on Instagram , X and Facebook .

Marc Topkin is a sports reporter covering the Tampa Bay Rays. Reach him at [email protected].

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A private village in Scottsdale houses some of Arizona's priciest real estate. I got a tour of its guarded neighborhoods.

• Silverleaf Village in Scottsdale, Arizona, is the city's most exclusive and expensive community.
• The residential area boasts Scottsdale's most expensive home, a $54 million mega-mansion.
• I got a private tour of the village with 24-hour guards and a championship golf course.

In the canyons beneath a mountain range dotted with cacti is Silverleaf Village, the most exclusive and expensive residential community in Scottsdale, Arizona .

In a city with a rapidly growing millionaire population , Silverleaf had an average selling price of $5.5 million in 2023, according to a representative of the neighborhood. And it's home to the most expensive residence on the market in Scottsdale — a mega-mansion listed for $54 million .

The village is in the 4,400-acre residential community of DC Ranch . Last month, I got an exclusive tour of the entire neighborhood's four villages, and Silverleaf stood out as the most elite, with custom estates and an exclusive clubhouse.

Take a look around the luxury desert oasis that Scottsdale's richest locals call home.

Silverleaf Village is in North Scottdale.

Silverleaf is on the east side of DC Ranch in North Scottsdale. The village is nestled in the canyons of the McDowell Mountains.

The village has 16 gated neighborhoods.

According to the DC Ranch website , the neighborhoods are guarded 24 hours a day.

The homes are a mix of luxury villas and custom estates.

Silverleaf's street signs have a fancy look, with curled details on the posts and serif fonts. According to the neighborhood's website, the homes were built in Spanish and Mediterranean Revival-style architecture.

The elevated signage, paired with mansions reminiscent of Italian castles and Greek villas, made me feel like I was somewhere in Europe.

Within the village is a private club with a golf course, a spa, pools, and restaurants.

Since the clubhouse is so exclusive, I wasn't able to access it with my media tour guide. But according to the club's website , it's a 50,000-square-foot space with casual and fine dining, a world-class spa, and both resort-style and lap pools.

I did get a peek at the championship golf course. It sprawls 18 holes over 7,322 yards and is surrounded by hills and succulents.

The homes with the highest elevation appeared to be the most luxurious.

Driving up the mountain, I noticed the houses looked more like mega-mansions. They had long, walled driveways leading up to estates with multiple buildings.

The village is still developing.

Toward the top of Silverleaf Village, I spotted several empty sites ready for more custom estates to be built. According to the neighborhood's website, luxury condos are also in the works.

From the top of Silverleaf, residents have a view of Scottsdale.

The top of Silverleaf had the best views in DC Ranch. Past the mansions and cacti dotting the canyon, I spotted golfing greens and a runway at Scottsdale Airport, where the wealthy park private jets .

With massive estates, luxury amenities, and jaw-dropping views, it was easy to see why Silverleaf Village is the most expensive place to live in Scottsdale.

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Statistics and Actuarial Science

Information for new graduate students in actuarial science, data science and statistics at the university of iowa..

Welcome New Graduate Students!

Information for NEW graduate students in Actuarial Science, Data Science and Statistics at the University of Iowa. 

Last Updated, May 31, 2024.                                   Additional  updates will be sent this summer!

Important Information for International Students

The Office of International Students and Scholars does an incredible job helping you settle into Iowa City and the University of Iowa.  They have webinars to help with:  

1. Getting Started and Making Travel Arrangements

2. Achieving Success: On-campus Involvement and Cultural Adjustment (undergraduate students)

3. Graduate Student Professionalization and Support

4. Understanding Orientation Expectations, Responsibilities, and Placement Tests (graduate students)

5. On-campus Housing Assignments and Move-in Tips (undergraduate students)

6. Student Employment

7. Money Matters - University Billing

Do you need to take the SPEC (Spoken Proficiency of English for the Classroom)?

All students for whom English is not a first language (as self-reported on their admissions application) and who have first-time appointments as graduate teaching assistants (TAs) are required to go through a testing process to assess their effectiveness in speaking English before they are assigned assistantship responsibilities. Beginning in Fall 2024, there will be a new test to assess communication in English in a classroom context called SPEC (Spoken Proficiency of English in the Classroom).  This is replacing ESPA and ELPT.  Details will be coming soon.

Any graduate student who is included in the following categories needs to have their oral English proficiency tested by the TAPE Program:

• Students whose first language is not English (i.e., learned another language first) as self-reported on their admissions application, and
• Have been appointed as a Teaching Assistant

Exemptions (may change):

• Students with an official valid (within the last two years) iBT Listening score of 25 and an iBT Speaking score of 26.
• Undergraduate degrees and/or     
• Continuous attendance of English-language schools since the age of 12 (or younger)
• Students who served as teaching assistants at other institutions of higher learning in which the language of instruction is English, if they were listed as the instructor of record for a course or led a discussion section in English for at least one year, with a year defined as either two academic semesters or three academic quarters.
• Requests for exceptions regarding the SPEC  can be submitted for evaluation to a committee consisting of the Director of ESL Programs, the Associate Dean for Administrative Affairs in the Graduate College, and a representative from University Human Resources.

Requests for exemption and exceptions must come from the department by the deadline, not the student.   Deadlines to register students for the SPEC are:

• March 1  

NOT Exemptions:

• Students who come from a country where English is one of the official languages.
• Students who are U.S. permanent residents or U.S. citizens whose first language is not English.

Testing Procedures & Results

 To be announced soon!

Graduate/Professional International Students Important Dates

July 12, 2024:  Earliest date you may enter the U.S. in F-1 or J-1 status. August 11, 2024:  Latest date by which you should arrive in Iowa City August 12 - 16, 2024: International Student Orientation August 26, 2024:  Classes begin.

Housing Information for All Students

The department has a housing webpage, please let us know if you have any questions or concerns. If you are looking for a roommate, please let us know and we can update this web page!

Looking for housing options ?

All US citizens that are financially supported (TA, RA) need to be here on August 21.

All students will register for classes the week before classes start.  International students must complete the required Orientation Program before  they can register for classes.    

____________________

Fall Classes Advising will be August 19-23

All NEW UI students must meet with their advisor prior to registration.  There is no worry about getting into any of the classes we teach.  

• IF you are an Actuarial Science MS or PhD student you will need to meet with Professor Shyamalkumar.  Email him after August 12 at [email protected] to set a time to meet to discuss what classes to take, it may be on Zoom or in his office (233 Schaeffer Hall).
• IF you are a Data Science MS, Statistics MS, or PhD student you will need to meet with Professor Boxiang Wang.  Email him after August 12 at [email protected]  to set a time to meet to discuss what classes to take, it may be on Zoom or in his office (261 Schaeffer Hall).

New Graduate College Welcome and Orientation, August 21

The Graduate College Fall 2024 Graduate Student Orientation event will take place on Wednesday, August 21, 2024.  A registration form will be sent to your UI email sometime this early summer from the Graduate College. All new doctoral and master’s students are invited to attend.  

New Teaching Assistant Orientation, August 22- required for all new supported students

Sponsored by the Center for Teaching

This event will introduce participants to the role of teaching assistant at the University of Iowa and prepare them for the first week of classes and beyond. 

Participants will discuss evidence-based teaching strategies for lesson planning, inclusive teaching, and more with Center for Teaching staff. Participants will also choose two workshops of interest to them out of several options; these will be facilitated synchronously by experienced TAs.  This is a virtual event for 9-noon.

• Sign up before August 21!

New Student Department Orientation, August 23 at 9 a.m., Room to be determined.

• All New Student Orientation —Group Introductions and General Policy Procedures.

New Supported Graduate Assistants Orientation, August 23 at 1 p.m., Room to be determined.

• Our Director of Graduate Studies will have a department review of expectations and your specific roles in our department. Teaching and grading assignments will be explained, as well as preparation, teaching tips, problems and questions, quizzes and exams, weekly meetings, grading, appropriate office use and the Sexual Harassment Prevention Education

Mailbox in 241 Schaeffer Hall 

All graduate students will have a mailbox in our main office.  The faculty do as well.  Please check your mailbox at least once a week!

Office Desk Assignment

Nearly all supported students will have a desk in one of our offices.  The assignment priority (in this order) includes Ph.D. and Fellowship candidates, research assistants, half-time teaching assistants, quarter-time teaching assistants and lastly graders.  Having a desk is a privilege and should be used only for university business.  Office assignments will be given to students on, August 23.  Keys are checked out ONLY after that time.  Please remember to keep the rooms clean and take out all trash to the large bins in the main hallways.

Set-up your University of Iowa Email

All University of Iowa students are required to activate their assigned uiowa.edu email address, as all official communication from university offices are now sent via email, rather than hard copy. This address usually follows the pattern [email protected]   (However, often a number is also attached.) 

To activate the account:

• Log on to  MyUI
• Click on My UIowa / My Email / Request Email Account
• Complete the specified steps.

Students who prefer to maintain only their work or home email addresses can do so by routing the uiowa.edu email to a work or home account. To do so, follow these steps:

• Click on My UIowa / My Email / Update Email Routing Address

Important Notes:

• If your uiowa.edu email address is routed to a different account, you will  not  need to change your address in ICON, as your messages will already forward to your routed address.
• Log on to MYUI.
• Click on My UIowa / My Email / Email Account Filter bulk mail.
• Make sure that none of the categories are checked.

Required Graduate Assistants Teaching Courses:

• ONLINE CLASS Requirement: Sexual Harassment Prevention Edu.  Use your HawkID and password to log into Employee Self Service. Click the Personal tab, next (under Learning and Development) click on Sexual Harassment Prevention Edu., follow instructions.
• ONLINE CLASS Requirement:  Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), Use your HawkID and password to log into Employee Self Service. Click the Personal tab, next (under Learning and Development) next click on Available Online Icon Courses, next FERPA Training, then click on View Details twice and the last click will be to Enroll in this ICON Course Session.
• A six-hour orientation program will be required of all students who are certified at level A or B and are teaching for the first time.  This orientation helps new teaching assistants understand the culture of the U.S. classroom and treats topics such as student expectations, teacher-student relationships, and understanding and answering student questions. Discussion focuses on suggestions for maximizing comprehensibility in spoken English. This course meets twice for 3 hours early in the semester. Both meetings are held in the evening.

Administrative Department Staff:

Professor aixin tan (until july 1, 2024).

Director of Graduate Studies, Statistics and Data Science Graduate Advisor: [email protected]   (319) 335-0821.

Professor Boxiang Wang (beginning July 1, 2024)

Director of Graduate Studies, Statistics and Data Science Graduate Advisor: [email protected] (319) 335-2294.

Professor N.D. Shyamalkumar

Actuarial Science Graduate Advisor:  [email protected]    (319) 335-1980

Margie Ebert

Academic Services Coordinator ,  [email protected]  (319) 335-2082

Heather Roth

Administrative Services Coordinator  [email protected]   (319) 335-0712

Tammy Siegel

Department Administrator ,  [email protected] , (319) 335-0706