Initial outreach was prompt and early conversations went smoothly. After a few rounds, I was given an unpaid take-home assignment that was wildly disproportionate to anything reasonable in a hiring process. The scope, set by the company, required a complete, multi-disciplinary, production-ready deliverable covering work that would normally be split across multiple specialists and billed as several days of paid professional output!
The brief provided was minimal relative to the scale of what was being requested, and candidates were expected to fill in the strategic and structural decisions themselves and deliver finished, usable work rather than a concept or a sample. What was requested was indistinguishable from a paid commercial engagement, delivered for free, under time pressure, before any offer existed.
The process was also applied unequally. Other candidates were given a full week to complete the same assignment. I was given roughly three business days because the team could not arrange a later presentation slot, and the deadline was "non-negotiable"! Same evaluation, half the time, no acknowledgment that this was unfair.
During the in-person presentation, the tone shifted noticeably from the earlier stages of the process. The panel appeared to register, in real time, that the scope they had set was significantly larger than what they were prepared to evaluate, and engagement dropped accordingly. No substantive or clarifying questions were asked, and no informed feedback was offered on the work itself. The people in the room did not appear equipped to scope an assignment of this size or to evaluate the disciplines involved. I was told afterward that the session had gone very well.
I later learned the role had been frozen before my presentation took place. No one informed me. I was allowed to complete days of intensive unpaid work, produce a finished deliverable of real commercial value, and present it to a panel that already knew the position no longer existed.
The pattern this creates is straightforward. Candidates produce significant unpaid professional output, at a scale set by the company and not by them, under artificial time pressure, for roles that may not exist, evaluated by people who are not equipped to assess what they requested. Future applicants should weigh that carefully before accepting an assignment from this company, and should consider asking in writing whether the role is actively open before committing any unpaid work.
