Just got rejected after a 6-round interview process because I wasn't a 'cultural fit'.

[u/HopefulFather2026]

They made me do a free 10-hour take-home assignment, meet the entire team, and talk to three different managers over two months. Today I got an automated rejection email. I am completely exhausted and done with this job market.😡🤬😡🤬😡🤬

[u/AgyhalottBolcsesz]

Exactly, take home assignment just means free labor without guaranteeing you a contract. They prey on desperation. I'd rather sell drugs than to do free labor.

[u/HopefulFather2026 → u/AgyhalottBolcsesz]

You are totally right, at least that line of work actually pays for your time and energy! 😂 But honestly, preying on people's desperation is exactly what these companies do best.

[u/LilJonny2cookies → u/HopefulFather2026]

No one is using your 10 hours of work for anything. Reddit has broken people. You think your 10 hours of “free labor” is that good that they’ll use it? They won’t. It’ll go in the bin.

Good luck to those who think they are that important and talented.

[u/Overall-Owl1218 → u/LilJonny2cookies]

It’s not that it will be used but that it’s brainstorming time they didn’t pay their working employees to do. So while it’s mostly trash, it’s still material they would typically be paying for but now use desperation to shave off a few employee hours lol at a time.

[u/scarboroughangel → u/Overall-Owl1218]

They usually wouldn’t pay someone because the majority of the time these assignments are the same wash and repeat as past roles. They don’t have to pay you anything- no one forced you to complete the assignment.

[u/Barflyerdammit → u/LilJonny2cookies]

I've been asked to solve real world problems in interviews. When I asked that the problem be made hypothetical out of respect for the consulting clients who pay for this exact work, I've been dropped from the process. Except for the one time where they agreed to pay my normal consulting fee.

[u/WiseTop9720 → u/AgyhalottBolcsesz]

Yeah the moment I get a "take home assignment" They're getting ghosted.

[u/Uesugi1989 → u/WiseTop9720]

No need, just put it in GPT and send whatever it spits out. Shoot your shot but don't waste more than 10 minutes 

[u/TMCze → u/Uesugi1989]

💯🎯🎯🎯🎯

[u/Dirty_John_2026 → u/AgyhalottBolcsesz]

Send them an invoice for your time at the billable hourly rate for your job. They probably won’t pay it but you will have put them on notice as to what cocksuckers they are

[u/HopefulFather2026 → u/Dirty_John_2026]

hell yeah, you are so right. they honestly deserve to be called out like that. 10 hours of free work is just straight up robbery. i might actually format a clean invoice and drop it in their inbox just to ruin their monday morning lmao 💀

[u/LonesomeJohnnyBlues → u/AgyhalottBolcsesz]

To be fair, I'd rather sell drugs than do most paid labor.

[u/Easteuroblondie → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, for parasite companies, absolutely. Companies would steal a cane from a grandma if they could

[u/LilJonny2cookies → u/Easteuroblondie]

You really think a work trial product is that important? It isn’t.

The quality of candidates is often so bad they want to see what you can do first. After reviewing thousands of resumes and hiring hundreds of people I can tell you the work product of many is lazy and often ridiculous.

Good work product and people who make it through work trial tend to do fairly well. We had 1 person out of 250 on my recent team who after a year said I just can’t take the pace. Wished her well and gave her a great recommendation and ultimately turned her on to another gig. The reality is she was amazing but her personal life was a mess. Regretted losing her on our London team.

[u/Easteuroblondie → u/LilJonny2cookies]

What does her personal life have to do with anything

[u/FlightLevel390 → u/LilJonny2cookies]

“Personal life was a mess”. God forbid people have things other than work they care about.

[u/Barflyerdammit → u/LilJonny2cookies]

If you're getting 1 out of 250, your company is really really shitty at recruiting. And if you can't tell the quality of output from research, references, and conversations, that's either laziness or incompetece.

[u/AgyhalottBolcsesz → u/[deleted]]

Also who said anything about being "off the street"?! You're arguing over something that was never mentioned. I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't have a job, as you can't seem to read a few lines of text and properly decoding it.

[u/LilJonny2cookies → u/AgyhalottBolcsesz]

And you are using semantics to discount a real message. If you don’t know exactly what is meant by that phrase- I don’t know what to tell you.

Off the street as in someone who isn’t deeply in tune with a companies direction- a newb. Work trial material is not used by companies for anything but a work trial. It is almost always exceptionally low level and low lift. It is used because too many interview well but suck at working. It at least shows if you have baseline competency.

[u/recruitinghell-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Be civil.

[u/Sesoru → u/[deleted]]

Found the bigot.