First I had a 45 minute interview to discuss the role and my qualifications. Then I was sent a take home project to design a sample travel itinerary. They provide extremely little detail for the itinerary leaving you to fill in a lot of blanks, the project took me 5 hours in total, it’s unpaid, and in the end I wasn’t accepted, which led me to believe they just took my itinerary to use then move on. For a project that takes that amount of effort, there should DEFINITELY be compensation, regardless of whether the candidate makes it to the next level or not.

Had what I thought was a good interview with the first screener, then was given an 8-day itinerary creation assignment. Not only did I complete the itinerary, I even provided alternative options for each element to account for a wide range of client tastes. The interviewer who reviewed it even said it was “perfect” and she couldn’t have done better. FlySmoother then ghosted me, rejecting me when I followed up. This has been a common experience among my other friends in the industry when applying to similar jobs. These travel start-ups post competitive salaries and positions to attract overqualified individuals, who then go on to build bespoke “sample” itineraries to be used by the start-up - either as an “off the rack” trip for clients, or as a training example for entry-level, and therefore “underpayable” candidates. Total scam.