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At micro1 and Mercor, the first interviewer you meet is software. Both screen applicants with short, recorded interviews run by an AI, and how you do decides whether your application goes any further. This guide covers what each interview involves, how to prepare and answer, what happens after a pass, and the habits that end applications early.
What each interview looks like
micro1's interviewer is Zara, which the company calls its AI recruiter. You apply for a specific role through micro1's Opportunities Portal. Each role lists the skills it requires, and Zara shapes its questions around them. You answer aloud, in a recorded conversation. micro1's documentation puts the interview at 20 to 40 minutes, about seven minutes for each skill assessed.
Expect open-ended technical questions about the role and scenario questions about what you would do in a given situation. Technical roles can add a coding challenge, and annotation roles an exercise in human-data work. micro1 shows you right away whether you met its certification criteria, and you can request feedback if you did not.
Mercor's AI interviewer asks questions specific to the role, produces a transcript and evaluates your answers for the listing. Most interviews take about 20 minutes, according to Mercor, though some run shorter or longer. You take it on camera in a browser. Mercor asks for the latest version of Chrome and your full face in view, and it does not support mobile browsers, so use a computer.
One Mercor rule deserves attention before you start. If you apply to another listing that uses an interview you have already completed, your earlier submission carries over automatically. A strong interview keeps working for you. A weak one can follow you.
| micro1 | Mercor | |
|---|---|---|
| Interviewer | Zara, micro1's AI recruiter | Mercor's AI interviewer |
| Format | Recorded conversation, answered aloud | Recorded on camera, in Chrome on a computer |
| Length | About 20 to 40 minutes, roughly seven per skill | About 20 minutes for most |
| Questions | Open-ended and scenario questions on the role's skills; coding for technical roles | Role-specific questions; your answers are transcribed and evaluated |
| Right after | Result shown at once; feedback on request | Your interview carries over to other listings that use it |
Before you start
Read the listing closely. Note the skills it names, the credentials it asks for and any location rule. The skills tell you what you will be asked about; the location rule tells you whether a pass can lead anywhere.
Make your résumé match what you will say. Expect both interviewers to test the experience you claim. For every role and project you list, be ready to explain the problem, what you did, what changed as a result and what you would do differently. If you cannot talk about a line for two minutes without notes, rewrite it or cut it.
Set up as you would for a recorded panel interview.
- A laptop or desktop, not a phone, with an up-to-date browser.
- The camera at eye level, light in front of you rather than behind, and your full face in frame.
- A microphone you have tested by recording yourself and playing it back.
- A quiet room, the door closed, notifications and other apps off.
- Reliable power and data. Where outages are common, charge the laptop fully and keep a backup hotspot or data plan ready.
- More time than the interview needs. Block an hour, so a slow start or a technical problem does not rush you.
Rehearse out loud. An answer you have only thought through is not one you can say well. Practice describing your work in answers of one to two minutes, and use any practice option the platform offers.
Tip
Record yourself answering two questions about your own work, then listen back. You will hear the filler words, the missing results and the answers that run long.
How to answer
Lead with the answer. State your conclusion, then give the evidence. With about seven minutes per skill at micro1, and about 20 minutes in all at Mercor, a long preamble costs you a question.
Be concrete. Name the tool, the decision and the result. Use numbers you can defend; invented precision falls apart under a follow-up.
Think aloud on technical and case questions. State your assumptions, outline the approach before the details, test an edge case, then commit to an answer and name its trade-offs. An interviewer can credit reasoning it hears. It cannot credit silence, so if you need a moment, say so. For coding challenges, our guide to coding for AI labs covers what reviewers look for.
Be honest about your limits. "I haven't used that in production, but this is how I would approach it" is a good answer. A confident bluff is not, because the next question tests it.
A weak and a strong answer
The question: "Tell me about a time you found an error others had missed."
Weak. I'm very detail-oriented. In my last job I often caught mistakes in reports, which improved quality.
Strong. At a logistics company, I reviewed the monthly fuel-cost report before it went to finance. Two depots showed identical figures for three months running, which was unlikely. I traced it to a formula that copied one depot's total into the other's row. The correction moved about 4 percent of the fuel budget between them. I added a check that flags identical rows, and the error has not come back.
The strong answer gives the situation, the clue, the cause, the fix and the lasting change in under a minute. The weak one describes a trait and offers nothing to check.
What ends an application
Scripted answers. A script answers the question you expected, not the one asked, and reading aloud sounds like reading. Follow-up questions expose both. Prepare points, not paragraphs.
AI help during the interview. The interview measures your judgment, so a chatbot's answer proves nothing about you, and companies that sell expert judgment have every reason to look for it. Do not run an assistant, a second screen or a helper out of view. If the instructions do not clearly allow a tool, assume it is banned.
Misrepresented credentials. A degree, license or job title you cannot discuss in depth will not survive the follow-ups. Expect to verify your identity with a government ID before any paid work, and apply as yourself, from the country where you live, with one account.
Warning
Never let anyone else take your interview for you, and never buy a ready-made account. Both misrepresent who is doing the work, which is what identity checks exist to catch. Anyone selling accounts or a promised pass is likely running a scam; our guide to AI training job scams covers the common offers.
After the interview
At micro1, a pass means you met the certification criteria for the skills tested. Certification is a qualification, not a contract: micro1 says certified candidates join its talent pool, and opportunities come to them from there. Offers depend on client projects, so the wait can be short or long. If you do not pass, request the feedback and close the gap before you apply for another role.
At Mercor, your interview stays on file for other listings that use it, which rewards a strong performance and counts against a rushed one. Mercor's help pages describe limited retakes but have differed on the details, so check the current rule before you begin and treat your first attempt as final. Matching depends on which projects are open, so the wait varies here too.
On both, a pass is the start of onboarding, not the end of it. Expect identity verification, a contractor agreement and payout setup before paid work begins. Our guide to getting paid from Africa covers the payout side.
While you wait, keep other applications moving. Log each interview's date and outcome, and consider the task marketplaces, which qualify you through assessments instead of interviews; how to pass AI training assessments explains those. ASV's own paid projects are another place to put the same skills to work.
Availability and recent events
micro1 publishes a list of countries and regions whose residents it cannot hire, citing legal, regulatory and security reasons. As of October 2026, the African countries on that list include the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libya, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan. Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, South Africa and Egypt are not on it. We could not confirm Ethiopia's status, so if you live there, check the live list before you apply.
Mercor can contract only in countries on its supported list, which is tied to where it can pay people. As of October 2026, the list included Egypt, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa. Kenya and Ethiopia were among the unsupported locations, where Mercor says it cannot onboard experts or issue contracts. These lists change, so check the live page before you interview, especially if you live in Kenya.
On both platforms, a listing can add its own rules on residence, work authorization or language, and a pass does not change them.
Mercor's 2026 security incident. In March 2026, Mercor suffered a security breach, which it confirmed and traced to a supply-chain attack involving LiteLLM, an open-source software project. In the weeks that followed, Meta paused its work with Mercor, and Mercor workers filed several proposed class-action lawsuits. Mercor has denied wrongdoing.
The risk is not unique to one company. Both interviews leave a recording of you talking about your career, and Mercor's adds a transcript.
Important
Treat the interview as a recorded call that others may review. Describe your work without confidential client, patient or colleague details, and share identity documents only through the platform's own verification step.
When you are ready, both platforms are below. Current pay ranges, payouts and country notes are on the micro1 and Mercor profiles, and where to apply first compares them with the task marketplaces. Where we have a referral link, Apply buttons on ASV use it; our disclosure page explains how that works.
micro1
An expert network supplying human data to frontier AI labs.
$20–$200/hrSelectiveOpen in Africa
Mercor
Specialist AI-training contracts for frontier labs, paid weekly via Stripe.
$20–$200/hrHighly selectiveSome countries
Sources
- AI interview guide (micro1)
- micro1 library (micro1)
- Apply (micro1)
- Leverage your expertise to train next-generation AI models (micro1)
- AI interview (Mercor)
- Prepare for AI interview (Mercor)
- Supported countries for payment (Mercor)
- After data breach, $10B-valued startup Mercor is having a month (TechCrunch)
In this post
- micro1Apply(opens in a new tab)
$20–$200/hr
- MercorApply(opens in a new tab)
$20–$200/hr