The first interview went really well. A marketing role, around sixty thousand a year, at a decent-sized company — and a feeling, she wrote, of genuine personal connection.
Then the email for round two. Before she could speak to anyone again, she was to complete a two-page assignment: about two hours of work, with a single day to finish it. After submitting, she would meet them once more to walk through her reasoning out loud — essentially, hand over her ideas and explain them.
Two hours of unpaid work, a twenty-four-hour deadline, and a follow-up meeting to defend it, all for a mid-range marketing salary.
She withdrew. She did not regret it, she wrote. It was just tiring, running into these processes again and again.