# Hands-on interview rounds for every field | Octrahire

> Coming soon: candidates do real work in the browser, from a design canvas to a circuit, while the Octrahire interviewer watches, adds a curveball and asks why.

Source: https://octrahire.ai/product/workspaces

Hands-on rounds for every field. The candidate does a real piece of the job in the browser. The Octrahire interviewer watches the work, changes the brief halfway, and asks them to defend their choices.

**Coming soon.** Available: live in production today. In beta: deployed and usable today; it may still change. Coming soon: not usable yet.

## Real work, in every field

- **UX and product design.** A canvas, a client who changes their mind, and a question about every choice.
- **Electrical engineering.** A breadboard and an oscilloscope. Build the filter, then explain the waveform.
- **Finance.** A live spreadsheet and a CFO asking why the margin moved.
- **Sales.** A CRM and an AI buyer who hides their budget until you ask the right question.
- **Frontline roles.** A short phone role-play in Arabic with an upset guest, from a WhatsApp link.
- **Civil engineering.** A beam, a load and a deflection limit. Size it, then defend the safety margin.

## Watch, curveball, defend

1. **Watch.** The interviewer follows the work as it happens: each formula, each moved button, each question put to the client. It asks “why did you…” at the right moment and stays quiet while the candidate is in flow.
2. **Curveball.** At the same point in every round, something changes. The client switches the brand colour, or the CFO wants a 10% cost cut. How the candidate adapts is part of the evidence.
3. **Defend.** The last few minutes are questions about the candidate's own work. Someone who pasted an answer, or had help, can't explain choices they didn't make.

## Fair by design

Candidates rate work samples and interviews among the fairest ways to be assessed. We keep it that way.

- **The same curveballs for everyone.** Every candidate for a role gets the same brief, the same curveball at the same moment and the same rubric.
- **Rubrics shown to candidates.** Before they start, candidates see what is scored and what good looks like. After, they see the evidence behind each score.
- **AI-allowed mode.** Employers choose AI-off or AI-allowed. With AI allowed, a built-in assistant helps, and gets one thing wrong on purpose. Checking its work is part of the score.

No emotion reading. Scores are evidence for a person to review, and a person makes every hiring decision.

## For universities

Give students a hands-on round in their own field before placement season, and give recruiters evidence beyond a CGPA.

- Practice rounds for engineering, finance, design and business students
- See who is ready, skill by skill, across a cohort
- Pilot each field with your students before employers see scores

## For employers

See how people work before you hire them. The workspace sits inside the interview they are already taking, so there is no extra test to send.

- A replay of how the candidate worked, with the moments that matter marked
- Arabic and English briefs. A phone round for frontline volume hiring
- Rounds built from your role, approved by you before anyone takes them

## What are Octrahire Workspaces?

Workspaces are hands-on interview rounds that Octrahire is building. The candidate does a real piece of the job in the browser, such as a design on a canvas, a model in a spreadsheet, a deal in a CRM or a circuit on a breadboard, while the Octrahire AI interviewer watches the work and talks with them. Halfway through, the brief changes in the same way for every candidate. The round ends with questions about the candidate's own choices. Workspaces are not available yet.

- **Status:** Coming soon. Not usable yet
- **First fields:** UX design, sales, customer support, data analysis, software and frontline phone roles
- **Then:** Finance, consulting, marketing, and electrical, mechanical, civil and chemical engineering
- **Languages:** English and Arabic
- **Where it runs:** In the browser. Frontline rounds run on a phone
- **Who decides:** A person. Scores come with the evidence behind them

## Questions

### Can I use Workspaces today?

Not yet. Workspaces are coming soon. Octrahire's AI interviews, including HR, technical, case study, coding and aptitude rounds, are available today. Ask for early access and we will tell you when the first fields open for pilots.

### Which fields come first?

UX design, sales, customer support, data analysis, software engineering and frontline phone roles come first. Finance, consulting, marketing and product follow, then electrical, electronic, mechanical, civil and chemical engineering.

### Can candidates use AI in a workspace round?

The employer chooses. In AI-off rounds there is no assistant. In AI-allowed rounds a built-in assistant helps, and gets one thing wrong on purpose, so the score shows whether the candidate checked its work.

### How is a workspace round scored?

Against a rubric the candidate sees before starting. The evidence comes from checks on the finished work, from what the candidate did and said during the round, and from how they defended their choices. Each score shows the moments behind it, and a person makes the hiring decision.

### Does anyone else offer this?

Based on our review of AI interview platforms in October 2026, no AI interview platform in the region offers hands-on work rounds today; they interview by video or voice. Elsewhere, coding tests with an AI interviewer exist, and so do sales role-plays, but we found no hiring tool where an AI interviewer watches a design canvas live.

### Does Octrahire read emotions or faces in a workspace?

No. Octrahire does not infer emotion. Workspaces score the work, the reasoning and the answers, never facial expressions.

## Sources

Work samples and structured interviews are among the strongest predictors of job performance, and candidates rate them among the fairest methods.

- [Sackett, Zhang, Berry and Lievens (2022), Journal of Applied Psychology, via SIOP](https://www.siop.org/tip-article/is-cognitive-ability-the-best-predictor-of-job-performance)
- [Anderson, Salgado and Hülsheger (2010), applicant reactions in 17 countries](https://cris.maastrichtuniversity.nl/en/publications/applicant-reactions-in-selection-comprehensive-meta-analysis-into/)