He has four-plus years in HR and has been applying for three months. After a first-round screen, the company asked him to complete a take-home project: an investigation summary, on a specified scenario, for a role heavy on employee relations. Due in five days.
Clear the project, and he moves to a second round with the hiring manager. Then a final round. No offer is attached to the work itself.
He wrote that he knew the consensus — that take-homes are free labour, that finishing one guarantees nothing. He asked whether anyone outside tech and marketing had ever received an offer this way. The question was not rhetorical. He was going to do the project either way.