How to get hired at Mercor

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Mercor recruits for AI companies one listing at a time. You keep one profile, and each listing has a checklist: usually your CV, where you are allowed to work, an AI interview and a written assessment. A step you finish counts for every other listing that asks for it, so the second application is quicker than the first.

1. Create an account at work.mercor.com with your email; there is no password.
2. Fill in your profile and upload a CV that Mercor can read.
3. Apply to listings, or take the assessments Mercor recommends, which can bring offers without an application.
4. Take the AI interview and any assessments the listing asks for, then press Submit.
5. Accept an offer: sign the contract and tax form, verify your ID and pass a background check.
6. Start work, tracked in the Insightful app and paid weekly.

Mercor sets the pay for each project; the rate and the weekly hour limit are in the offer. Work is project by project, and projects end.

Sources: New application steps · Instant offers · Project questions

Before you start

• Where you live. You can sign up, get an offer or start a contract only from a country Mercor can pay through Stripe or Wise. The list on its payments page is the one to check: Pakistan, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Ukraine, Russia, China, Hong Kong, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Lebanon and Venezuela are among the places it can’t pay, and anywhere not on its list counts as unsupported.
• A bank account in your own name in that country. Joint, business and relatives’ accounts are not accepted.
• A computer running Windows 10 or later or macOS 11 or later, with a camera and microphone. Paid hours are tracked in a desktop app that doesn’t run on Chromebooks, iPads or phones.
• A mobile number from a phone company. Internet numbers such as Google Voice aren’t accepted for the code Mercor sends.
• Your passport, national ID card or driving licence, and a phone to take the ID check on.
• No VPN. Since 17 July 2026 Mercor blocks sign-ins through VPNs, proxies and services such as iCloud Private Relay. Some antivirus “secure browsing” features count too.

Sources: Supported countries · Payments · Insightful · Account security

Creating your account

1. Go to work.mercor.com/login. A login screen is normal for a new account: enter your email and choose Sign up (or use Google).
2. Open the email Mercor sends and follow the link. Every later sign-in also uses an emailed link, so use an address you can open straight away.
3. Give your full legal name, your LinkedIn profile (or tick that you don’t have one) and your CV.
4. Say where you are allowed to work.
5. Verify your phone with the code sent by text or WhatsApp. You can ask for a new code after 30 seconds.

You can look through the roles on work.mercor.com/explore before you sign up. Some Mercor roles on LinkedIn also have Easy Apply; if your profile fits, Mercor emails a link to finish on its own site. Use the same email address in both places.

Keep to one account. A second one has to be deleted, and accounts can’t be merged.

Sources: Create an account · How to apply

Your CV and profile

Mercor reads your CV to fill in your profile, and says a complete, accurate profile makes it more likely you’re invited to interview. A CV it can’t read leaves your profile thin.

The CV file

• A PDF made from text, not a scan or a photo, so it can be read.
• One or two pages, a simple layout without tables or pictures, and clear headings: Education, Experience, Skills, Certifications.
• Under 2 MB. (One help page allows 3 MB; the other says 2 MB, so 2 MB is safe.)
• Uploading a new CV replaces the old one at once. Check the details Mercor read from it afterwards.

What Mercor’s reviewers look for

• Three to five lines per job, each starting with what you did, for whom and what came of it, with numbers where you have them.
• Two to four projects that show your work: the problem, your part, the tools, the result, and a link where you’re allowed to share one.
• The skills you use every day kept apart from those you use now and then, rather than a long list of keywords.
• A CV and profile that agree with each other, and titles that match what you did.

Mercor names the common faults too: vague descriptions, out-of-date tools, inflated job titles, broken links and text copied from the listing.

The rest of the profile

The profile has tabs for your CV details, where you live and work, availability (start date, time zone, hours a week), work preferences and account settings. A complete profile needs your legal name, email, phone, CV, LinkedIn (or “I don’t have one”), city and country. Keep your availability, time zone, weekly hours and languages up to date: Mercor uses them to match you to work.

Sources: Set up your profile · How to apply

Applying to a listing

Explore, in the left-hand menu, lists the roles, sorted by fit, trending, newest or pay. Apply Now opens the listing’s checklist. Most checklists have some of these: upload CV, work authorisation, AI interview, written assessment, availability, extra questions, ID check, phone check. You can usually do them in any order; some listings open each step only after the one before.

• Press Submit. Steps you’ve already done elsewhere fill in by themselves, and an application can show “Ready to submit” without you touching it. It isn’t reviewed until you submit it.
• Act quickly. Listings can close at any time, and an unfinished application on a closed listing can’t be completed.
• One version of everything. You can’t use a different CV, interview or assessment for different applications, and a submitted application can’t be edited or withdrawn.
• Watch for steps that come back. If a project changes what it asks for after you submit, a step can show as incomplete again. Finish it to stay in the running.

Recommended assessments

Once you’ve uploaded a CV, the Assessments tab shows up to two recommended assessments. Mercor calls these a main way in: passing one means you’re considered for new roles that use it without applying, and can lead to an offer for a role you never saw (an “Instant Offer”). Choose ones that fit your background.

Sources: New application steps · How to apply · Assessments · Instant offers

The AI interview

An AI interviewer asks questions about the role, writes down your answers and assesses you for the listing. Most interviews take about 20 minutes. Some go deep into your past work, others test your language or reasoning. They’re in English unless the listing says otherwise. There’s no human or phone alternative.

Each interview is taken once: other listings that use the same interview reuse your result.

What you need

• A desktop or laptop with a working camera and microphone. Chrome is recommended; Edge and Safari work; Firefox and phones don’t.
• Headphones and an external microphone if you have them, a quiet room and a steady connection.
• Pen and paper, and a calculator if the role involves numbers.
• VPNs, ad blockers and privacy extensions turned off: Mercor says they can stop the interviewer responding.

The waiting room

Before you start, Mercor checks your microphone (you read a phrase aloud) and, for interviews that need it, screen sharing, which must be your whole screen rather than one window or tab. It also checks that your face is in frame and lit, and that your camera works and is steady. The Start button stays grey until the required checks pass.

During the interview

• Keep your whole face in view. Captions are on by default.
• You can ask the interviewer to repeat or explain a question.
• If you pause for a long time it may move on; you can tell it you hadn’t finished.
• Some interviews have a whiteboard, which saves by itself.
• Don’t end early: an interview that stops well before its planned length is marked “Interview too short”, doesn’t count, and uses up a retake.

Practice and retakes

A free practice interview, not linked to any application, can be taken as often as you like, and isn’t shown to companies. Take it first.

You can retake an interview yourself from Home, Assessments, Retake assessment. Mercor’s pages disagree on how many times: one says up to three across every application that uses the interview, another that each interview sets its own number. A retake resets your progress on the application, only your latest attempt is assessed, and hiring managers can see how many times you retook it. Mercor asks that retakes be kept for technical problems. Applications you’d already submitted keep the attempt they were submitted with.

Mercor keeps the recording and a transcript to assess you and recommend you to companies. It doesn’t share recordings, scores or individual feedback.

Sources: AI interview · How to apply · New application steps

Assessments

Besides the interview, listings use written or multiple-choice forms, and some roles a task-based or reasoning test with a practice step first. Mercor says they test your knowledge of the field, how you tackle real problems, how well you follow instructions and handle unclear ones, and how clearly you write or speak. The same assessment can count for more in one listing than another, and people may read your answers as well as software.

• Treat the first attempt as the one that counts. Most assessments take one submission. A form you can’t retake reopens read-only.
• Read every instruction, and check your answers before you submit. Many forms let you keep the instructions open beside your answers.
• Check for a timer. Most have no strict limit. A timed one shows its time before you start, can’t be paused, submits what you’ve saved when time runs out, and shouldn’t be reloaded.
• Keep a copy of long answers. Saving as you go isn’t guaranteed, and some assessments block copy and paste.

Some assessments send feedback by email or show it on the Assessments tab. Mercor’s support doesn’t give scores or individual feedback.

Mercor Academy

Free self-paced courses at work.mercor.com/learn, with a short quiz after each lesson (three tries, no time limit) and a final set of AI interviews with your screen shared, ending in a certificate you can add to LinkedIn. Mercor doesn’t say whether the certificate helps you get matched.

Sources: Assessments · Mercor Academy

Paid work trials

Some roles ask for a paid trial before an offer. It appears under Offers or Important Tasks on your Home page, and an email from Mercor comes with it.

1. Before you can accept it, sign the Terms of Work and the confidentiality and inventions agreement (CIIAA), accept the payout terms, set up payment (an ID check and your bank details, in the name on your ID) and sign the offer letter.
2. Do the trial before its deadline. It usually takes four to six hours and can be split across sessions. Accepting adds two weeks to the date in the email; the end date on the trial page is the one that counts, and an expired trial can’t be reopened.
3. Payment is a fixed amount whether or not you’re chosen, usually within 14 business days of review and then three to seven days to reach you. Mercor can hold it back for rushed or unfinished work.

Only one trial is ever paid per person, even if you’re offered several. A trial doesn’t guarantee an offer, comes with no feedback, and can be withdrawn if the places fill. Training such as the Rubric Academy is unpaid while you’re applying and paid only inside a trial or a contract.

Sources: Work trials · Project questions

AI tools and conduct

Unless an assessment says otherwise, you may not use ChatGPT or any other AI tool to write your answers, copy outside material, share answers or work with someone else. Mercor allows grammar and wording checks, and light changes to tone where the ideas and structure stay yours. It doesn’t allow AI to rate model responses, write explanations or work out what code does, in the interview or the assessments, and says answers written by AI are flagged. You may talk about the interview in general terms, but not share its questions.

Once you’re working

The Insightful app records your time, a few screenshots an hour and signs of activity while you work. Mercor reviews hours and can deduct them, then remove you from a project or suspend your account, for:

• the timer running while you’re idle or doing something else;
• work done by someone else, a shared account or a second account;
• AI or automation where the project doesn’t allow it;
• signing in through a VPN or proxy, or tampering with Insightful;
• sharing project material outside the project’s own channels.

Low-quality work doesn’t lower your hourly pay, but it counts against you for later projects. A person reviews before any pay is withheld.

Sources: AI tool use · Account security and conduct · Time tracking and pay

Offers and onboarding

Offers come from your applications or, as Instant Offers, from Mercor matching your interview, assessments, skills and availability to a listing. They arrive in the app and by email, and every offer has a deadline: an expired offer can’t be brought back. Turning one down doesn’t count against you.

The offer shows the contract type, the role, the hourly rate, the weekly hour limit, the payout method and the start date. Mercor suggests taking a screenshot of the rate and limit before you accept. Then:

1. Sign the offer letter, which has to come first, then the Terms of Work, the CIIAA and your tax form.
2. ID check through Persona: a photo of your passport, ID card or driving licence and a short selfie video, done on your phone. A photo of an ID on a screen is refused. It usually takes seconds, at most a business day. Turn off any VPN or iCloud Private Relay first. You’ll often repeat it for each new offer.
3. Background check through Certn or Zinc. Fill in the form within 48 hours of the invitation. It can cover criminal records and, for finance and legal roles, sanctions and professional-conduct lists. Some countries ask you to get a police certificate yourself. A cleared check counts for five years.
4. Payment setup (Stripe or Wise), the Insightful app, and for some projects an Okta sign-in.

You can start once the background check clears: Mercor says typically one to two weeks, five to seven business days with Certn. Your project’s onboarding document, with its Slack and other links, appears under your contract within seven days. Working project members get a separate @mercor.expert email address.

An offer can still be withdrawn before onboarding starts, for example after a failed background check or a change in the project’s needs.

Sources: Instant offers · Project onboarding · ID verification · Background checks · Getting started

Pay, tax and hours

• When: hours from Saturday to Friday are paid the following Wednesday, around midday Pacific time. Your first Stripe payout is held for seven days.
• How: Stripe, into a bank account, or Wise where Stripe isn’t available; Mercor picks by country. With Wise you claim each payment from its email. Contracts are in US dollars and paid out in your currency. A standard Stripe payout is free and takes up to five business days; an instant one costs 1%.
• Bonuses, trial pay and referral pay are paid on Wednesdays or Fridays, depending on when they’re approved.
• Tax: you’re an independent contractor and Mercor doesn’t take off tax. You fill in a W-9 if you’re a US person or a W-8BEN if you’re not, and you contract as an individual, not a company.
• Hours: only time tracked in Insightful is paid. Each contract has a weekly limit, and hours over it aren’t paid without approval. The limit is for the week, not per day, and most projects let you choose when you work. There’s no stated minimum, and you can hold several contracts at once.

A project can pause, with your weekly limit set to zero while you stay in its pool, and can move between hourly and per-task pay through a change to your contract that you can accept or refuse.

Sources: Payments · Taxes and work authorisation · Contracts · Project questions

Why applications stall

Mercor publishes no typical waiting time. It emails you when an application moves on or is decided, and suggests applying to other listings in the meantime. The reasons its own pages give for applications going nowhere:

• an application left at “Ready to submit”, which is never reviewed;
• a CV that can’t be read (a scan, a photo, tables), leaving the profile thin;
• a listing that closed before the checklist was finished;
• an interview ended early, or retaken without a reason;
• an offer, trial or background-check form left past its deadline;
• a VPN, iCloud Private Relay or an internet phone number blocking sign-in or checks.

What Mercor says helps most: take the recommended assessments, keep your skills and availability current, turn on email and app notifications, answer before deadlines, and apply to listings yourself as well as waiting for Instant Offers.

What applicants report

Some applicants say they heard nothing after the AI interview, while others in the same discussions describe getting project work, sometimes for only a week or two. On Trustpilot, a few reviews from 2026 describe being removed from a project with little notice. These are a handful of reports, not a measure of how often it happens. In November 2025 Mercor ended one large project and offered its contractors a similar one at a lower rate; it describes all its roles as temporary and project-based.

Sources: How to apply · Instant offers · Trustpilot reviews

Official addresses and scams

• Mercor’s email comes only from addresses ending in @mercor.com. Its site is work.mercor.com and its help pages are on talent.docs.mercor.com. Payment setup and account changes happen only on work.mercor.com.
• Mercor never charges you to apply, interview or start work. A request for money in its name isn’t from Mercor.
• Support is [email protected], answered first by an AI assistant, Melvin, which never contacts you first, asks for passwords or asks for payment details.
• The other companies you’ll hear from are Persona (ID), Certn or Zinc (background check), Insightful, Stripe and Wise.

Sources: Time tracking and pay · Melvin · Project onboarding · Our official-sites checker