AfterQuery screens experts with an interview and a skills assessment, and the assessment allows one attempt, unpaid, with no result. This guide covers how to choose your pool and get that attempt right. From AfterQuery’s help centre and website, read 13 October 2026.
The work the assessment imitates
AfterQuery says each assessment is built to resemble real project work, not an abstract multiple-choice test. So learn the work first. Of the 47 open AfterQuery roles on this site:
- 23 ask you to create questions, problems, scenarios or prompts for training or testing AI
- 16 ask you to do tasks from your own field, such as financial analysis in Excel and PowerPoint, code review or econometrics
- 7 recruit senior experts into a research cohort that evaluates how frontier AI models reason about hard problems
A physics posting puts the first kind plainly: write real-world physics questions, then check whether the model’s answers hold together logically. AfterQuery’s FAQ lists the wider range as programming, research analysis, technical review, data analysis, content development and specialised consulting.
If you have never written a question to test an AI, here is the idea, in an example of our own. A tax adviser writes a question about a client with income in two countries, where the obvious answer misses a treaty rule. They solve it themselves, write out the reasoning, and note the step where a careless answer goes wrong.
The interview: one line is all there is
AfterQuery’s homepage says you either meet its team or record an asynchronous video interview about your experience and goals. It says nothing about how long the interview runs, what it asks, whether it can be retaken or whether you hear a result.
Its role pages do not mention the interview either. Their application form asks for a resume. Some roles also ask for a licence, such as a bar admission, a CPA or a teaching licence. Be ready to say which field you know best and what kind of project you want. That is the one thing AfterQuery says the interview covers.
One assessment per pool, and one attempt
AfterQuery groups work into expert pools. Your Assessments tab lists the pools open at the moment, and each pool has one assessment. The help centre sets the rules:
- You get one attempt. AfterQuery says assessments cannot be retaken or reassessed, and asks you to treat yours with the care you would give real project work.
- It is unpaid.
- The length varies by pool. You see a time estimate before you start.
- Pools are separate. You can take the assessment for any open pool you are interested in, but a result in one does not carry over to another.
How to approach a one-shot assessment
With no retake, most of the work happens before you start:
- Choose the pool closest to the work you do now. One attempt means it is better spent where you are strongest.
- Check the time estimate and clear that time. Do not start with half an hour to spare.
- Read every instruction before you begin. AfterQuery’s work guidelines say to read all of them first, and to ask rather than guess when something is unclear.
- Show your reasoning where the task allows it. The postings ask experts to explain and verify, not only to give an answer.
- Check your work before you submit. The same guidelines ask you to review for errors and missed details first.
After: silence is the normal result
AfterQuery sends no pass or fail notice. Its help centre says that not hearing back right away does not mean anything went wrong. Usually there is no matching project for your pool yet, and AfterQuery follows up when one comes up.
It also says a strong result does not guarantee a project. Timing depends on what projects need. Questions about an assessment you have taken go to [email protected].
Onboarding before you can be paid
Before you can start on projects, AfterQuery’s onboarding asks for four steps, in order:
- Sign two agreements in the app.
- Verify your phone number through Persona.
- Verify your identity with a government-issued ID and a selfie, also through Persona.
- Set up payments through Stripe.
Linking LinkedIn is optional. AfterQuery says to allow 10 to 15 minutes. Before you start, check that it can pay out to your bank’s country, because it cannot pay into a country it does not support. Each person may hold one account. Payouts go out every Friday for the previous week’s approved work, and Stripe holds the first one for 7 days.
AfterQuery keeps your application, credentials and ID documents. You can delete your account from your My Account page, though AfterQuery says this does not remove anything a hiring organisation has already downloaded.
What AfterQuery does not publish
None of the following is on an AfterQuery page, so this site does not state it:
- anything about the interview beyond the one line above
- how assessments are scored, or what counts as a strong result
- how long it takes to be matched to a project after the assessment
- how much work reaches you once you are matched
Before you start
Read the posting, pick the pool closest to your field, set aside the estimated time and treat the assessment as real work. Then browse the open AfterQuery roles. To compare, the micro1 and Mercor interviews side by side shows two platforms that do allow retakes or feedback.
This site is not affiliated with AfterQuery, and passing the assessment is not a promise of work.