When Mary Connolly, a former tax consultant at PwC, applied for an open role at Canva, she’d already done her homework. The product manager, who was working on new features for the consulting giant’s tax software, had taken extra courses, set up coffee dates with Canva employees, and used the company’s platform to create her resume.

It was good practice for what came later in Canva’s recruiting process, when potential Canvanauts – as they are known – must pass the Canva challenge. Designed to screen out anyone who doesn’t share a passion for the product, candidates are given a take-home assignment that requires them to use Canva’s design software to create a presentation then deliver it to a hiring panel.