Introducing Job Simulations

A job simulation is a short, AI-driven scenario where the candidate plays the role you are hiring for and the AI plays the other side: an angry customer, a buyer pushing back on price, a colleague raising a concern. The candidate responds live on camera. You get a scored, replayable video of how they handled the moment.

Job simulations sit alongside your other evaluation tools in Step 2 of the assessment builder:

• Skills tests measure ability through timed questions. Output: a score.
• Conversational AI Interviews ask the candidate to describe how they would handle something. Output: a scored transcript.
• Job simulations put the candidate inside the moment itself. Output: a scored, shareable video.

The three tools work together. Use skills tests to filter on ability, Conv-AI interviews to hear how a candidate thinks, and job simulations to see how they actually handle the work.

Skills tests show isolated ability. Interviews show what candidates claim. A job simulation shows how the candidate actually handles the moment that decides the role: how they listen, how they recover, how they reason out loud. You see in 20 minutes what would normally take six weeks on the job to find out.

Every shortlist review hits the same wall. You have watched the candidates. The hiring manager has not. They ask "but can they actually do it?" and you offer your read. Job simulations close that gap. Same scenario, same rubric, same scoring model for every candidate, so the comparison is honest. A scored video the hiring manager can play back before the meeting, so they walk in already knowing what you know.

The candidate experience flips from "I am being interviewed by AI" to "I am doing a piece of the actual job." The AI is not pretending to be a recruiter. It is the angry customer, the tough buyer, the colleague. Both sides are playing a role and the candidate knows it. Easier to defend internally and easier to live with externally.

Job simulations launch with a library of scenarios spanning customer service, sales, engineering, and cross-functional roles. The library grows over the quarter.

You cannot create your own job simulation at launch. Custom simulations are on the roadmap. If a TestGorilla-built simulation does not match your role exactly, the scenarios are designed to be role-agnostic enough that the soft skills transfer across companies.

Add a job simulation to a new assessment, or edit an existing one.

• In Step 2: Assessment, select the Job simulations card.



(Step 2 of the assessment builder, with the Job simulations tool card)
• In Step 3: Configuration, browse the available simulations. If you added a job description in Step 1, you will see suggestions that fit the role first.
• Click any simulation to view the scenario summary, the skills it measures, the rubric, and the candidate experience.
• Click Add to include the simulation in your assessment. You can add one job simulation per assessment.
• To remove a simulation, click the trash icon next to it. To remove the tool entirely, open the options menu and select Remove tool.

Once a job simulation is part of the assessment, candidates complete it as part of their normal flow.

• Set the scene: The candidate is shown the scenario in plain language. They know it is a simulation and they know the AI is playing the other side.
• Run the scene: The AI delivers its lines on camera (the angry customer, the buyer, the colleague). The candidate responds live in their own words.

• Stay in control: Candidates can pause and review the scenario brief at any point during set-up. Once the scene starts, they respond in real time, just like they would on a real call.

  

  (The candidate's view during a job simulation, showing the AI character, the candidate's own video preview, and a timer.)

A typical job simulation takes 20 to 25 minutes including instructions. The candidate sees a closing screen and clicks Finish to complete.

TestGorilla's science team builds the rubric for every job simulation. The AI scores each candidate response on a 0–5 scale per criterion and provides the reasoning behind every score.

To review a candidate's simulation:

1. Open the candidate's results page from the assessment overview.
2. Click the Job simulation card. The full recording, transcript, and per-criterion scores appear together.
3. Read the AI's reasoning. If you disagree with a score, edit it directly. The candidate's overall percentile and raw scores update once you close the modal.

Scoring is based on what the candidate says and how they handled the moment, not on tone, accent, or appearance.

Job simulation results show up in the same places as your other evaluation tools: in the candidate's PDF report, in the assessment summary, and in CSV and Excel exports.