The screening call lasted thirty minutes. It went fine. Then a link arrived — a series of written questions and answers, each one four or five parts deep, and hardly any of it connected to the role applied for. Scanning it, the candidate judged it would take at least an hour to do properly.
They started, and then stopped. If the recruiter, after half an hour on the phone, could not tell whether they wanted to work together, the written homework was not going to settle it. No call came afterwards, and no reminder. Their conclusion was tidy: if the prerequisite is that you do an hour of unpaid work before they will speak to you again, then so be it — but they would not be doing it.