Mercor, Alignerr and DataAnnotation all verify identity through Persona, and Outlier asks for ID and a phone from your country of residence. What each check involves, why a VPN breaks it, how it differs from a background check, and where your data goes.
Outlier and Mercor both publish the conduct that gets accounts removed: VPNs, second accounts, AI-written work, padded hours and leaked task content. What their rules say, what workers report about suspensions, and the habits that keep an account in good standing.
Being accepted on Outlier, DataAnnotation, micro1 or Handshake AI and then seeing no tasks is common, and the platforms say so in their own help pages. The four causes they name, what workers report, and what you can change.
Getting accepted on AI training platforms is mostly automated matching, and the platforms publish what their matching reads. Five things that shorten the path on Mercor, micro1, Alignerr, Outlier and DataAnnotation, each taken from the platform's own help pages.
No AI training platform promises work after acceptance, so applying to several at once is the sensible default. How to shortlist, reuse one CV and one round of preparation, sequence the unpaid steps, and avoid the rules that catch people working several platforms.
An AI training resume is read first by a parser and a fit check, then by a person, and later by a background check. What Mercor, Outlier and Alignerr say they do with your CV, and illustrative before-and-after bullets for three common backgrounds.
Most AI training assessments give you one attempt, forbid AI help and are graded against guidelines you were just handed. What Mercor, Outlier and DataAnnotation publish about their tests, and the habits that follow from it.
Every platform runs the same five steps in a different order: profile, eligibility, assessment, onboarding, then a wait. Most people do them backwards and burn an evening on an unpaid AI interview for a project their country was never open to. Here is the sequence that fails fast and cheap, with what each of the five platforms actually asks for.
Every listing shows its pay and who it is open to.