# He Planted a Bug in His Own Take-Home Test. The Rejection Arrived Before the Notification Did.

**[TRUE STORY]** — by Software developer · via r/recruitinghell

A developer on r/recruitinghell, suspecting his take-home coding assignment was never actually being reviewed, embedded a deliberate error that would fire a notification if anyone opened the file. The company's rejection email landed within two hours. The notification never did. The recruiter had rejected code they never even ran.

*Source: [r/recruitinghell · 1k upvotes](https://scoop.upworthy.com/candidate-exposes-a-recruiter-with-a-simple-code-fp)*
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