For Applicants
The Writing Sample
We want to see how you think.Not how well you can dig up your most polished note from three years ago.
How This Works
Instead of asking for work samples, we give everyone the same fictional client and ask you to write it up. Pick whichever of the two below is closer to the work you want to be doing. Read it, then send us either a progress note or a treatment plan based on it. Your call which one.
Please do not send us documentation from a current or former employer
Not even redacted. That is your employer's record and your client's information, and it is not yours to hand to a third party. Black boxing a name is not de-identification.
This is the whole reason we do it this way.
Before or after. Your call.
Some people want it out of the way before we meet. Some people want to know we are worth the hour first. Both are completely reasonable, and neither one counts against you.
Write it the length your real notes are. If that is four paragraphs, send four paragraphs. We are not looking for a padded version of your work, and we are not testing whether you can guess our template. We will teach you our documentation standards after you are hired.
Send it to Fledge@AlaTherapyCollective.com whenever it is ready. Not on the calendar yet? Grab a Zoom. Thirty minutes, no prep required.
About AI
We use AI documentation tools here. Our EHR has one built in and plenty of good clinicians use it. This is not a purity test and we are not going to run your writing through a detector, partly because those do not work.
This exercise is the one place we want it off, and the reason is simple. We already know what an AI drafted note looks like. What it cannot tell us is how you think, and that is the only thing we are trying to learn here.
So write it yourself. When we talk, we are going to ask you why you landed where you did and what would change your mind. That conversation is the actual assessment. The document is just what we talk about.
Pick One
Whichever is closer to the work you want to be doing.
Option One
Rowan
Everything below is fictional. No real client, no real details.
Rowan is 34, uses they and them pronouns, and is attending their third session. They were referred by their primary care provider after presenting with what the PCP documented as generalized anxiety.
Rowan grew up in a small town about two hours outside Oklahoma City, in a family and church community they describe as "the whole town, basically." They left the church at 26 and have not been back except for a grandparent's funeral. Their parents still attend. Rowan reports that phone calls with their mother "end with her praying at me," and that they have started letting those calls go to voicemail.
Rowan works remotely in software quality assurance. They report they are good at their job and that it is the only part of their life that feels manageable. They describe struggling with unstructured time, becoming overwhelmed in grocery stores and at social events, and having a longstanding routine of eating the same four meals in rotation. They mention offhand that a friend recently told them they "sound autistic," and that they had never considered it but have not stopped thinking about it since. They have never been assessed.
Rowan reports sleeping five to six hours and waking at 3am most nights with what they call "the spiral." They deny current suicidal ideation. They report that during their last year in the church, around age 25, they had "long stretches where I would have been fine if I just didn't wake up," but state this has not returned since leaving and that they have never made a plan or an attempt. No history of psychiatric hospitalization. No current medications.
In this session Rowan brought up the upcoming holidays for the first time. Their sister has invited them home. They said they have read the text message "probably forty times" and have not replied. They cried briefly while describing their grandmother's funeral, then apologized for crying and changed the subject to work.
Option Two
Deshawn
Everything below is fictional. No real client, no real details.
Deshawn is 29, married, and four months postpartum with their first child. This is the second session. They self-referred after finding the practice online and specifically asked for someone who "won't take my kid away."
Deshawn reports the pregnancy was planned and wanted. Delivery involved an unplanned cesarean after 22 hours of labor. They describe the hospital experience as "everybody talking over me while I was on the table." They report they have not told their OB or their pediatrician what they are about to tell the clinician.
Deshawn describes recurring intrusive images of the baby being harmed. Specifically, images of dropping the baby down the stairs, and of the baby not breathing in the crib. The images arrive unbidden several times a day, most often while they are carrying the baby or standing near the stairs. They describe them as "the worst thing I have ever seen in my head." They now go down the stairs sitting on their bottom while holding the baby, check the crib eleven or twelve times a night, and have asked their spouse to do most of the carrying. They state clearly and repeatedly that they do not want to hurt the baby and that the images horrify them.
Deshawn denies suicidal ideation. They deny any desire or intent to harm the baby. There is no report of hallucinations, delusional content, or confusion about reality. They are oriented, and their account is coherent and organized throughout the session.
Deshawn reports sleeping in fragments, roughly four hours total across the night. They have stopped taking the baby to their mother's house because the stairs there have no railing. They cried when they said "I googled it and I stopped reading because I thought they were going to describe me." Near the end of the session they asked the clinician directly whether they are a danger to their child.
What We Are Actually Reading For
We are not looking for a perfect note. We are looking for:
- Whether you can write a clear sentence
- Whether your clinical reasoning is visible, not just your conclusions
- How you handle risk, including whether you address it at all
- Whether you can sit with ambiguity instead of forcing a diagnosis onto it
- Whether the client in your writing sounds like a person or like a case number
- Whether the documentation would hold up if somebody audited it
Take a position. We would much rather read a confident, well-reasoned note we disagree with than a vague one that commits to nothing.
Questions You Are Probably Having
Is there a right answer?+
Progress note or treatment plan?+
How long should it be?+
As long as one of your actual notes. If that is four paragraphs, send four paragraphs. This should take twenty minutes, not an evening.
If you send us six pages we will read all six, and we will also quietly wonder what your Friday afternoon documentation looks like.
The vignette does not give me enough information.+
Correct. Neither does a real second session.
Write what you can support, name what you would want to know next, and say what you would do about not knowing it yet. That is most of the job.
Do I have to pick the one that matches my niche?+
Can I do both?+
What format do you want it in?+
Are you going to keep my writing?+
I have never written a note in this format.+
Do I have to do this at all?+
Why are they named Rowan and Deshawn?+
Send It When You Are Ready
No portal. No upload form. Just email it to Fledge@AlaTherapyCollective.com.
Not here for the writing sample yet? Read about the role first.