# Eight interviews. One take-home project. One week of silence. One revoked link.

**[TRUE STORY]** — by Senior leadership candidate · via r/recruitinghell

A senior candidate applied to an 80-year-old company for a leadership role. What followed was a hiring marathon that makes the case for why view-only links should be every applicant's default. The process stretched across eight interviews — up to and including the VP level. After the third round, the company asked for a take-home assignment: a full project plan with mockups. The candidate delivered, uploading everything as a view-only PDF with downloads disabled. Then: nothing. A week of radio silence. Calls, emails, follow-ups — all ignored. That was when the candidate revoked access to the project files. Within 24 hours, the recruiter was suddenly very available, calling with what they described as "good news." Then came the pivot: they couldn't open the presentation. Could the candidate send the PDF? The original file? Anything they could download? The recruiter let slip that the candidate's project was one of only four being presented internally. The company, it turned out, had been running what amounted to an unpaid consulting RFP disguised as a hiring process — collecting free strategic work from applicants and presenting it as their own. The candidate held firm. No source files, no downloads. Offered to re-present live instead. The recruiter's tone shifted. No one ever called back. Reddit's r/recruitinghell awarded the post 3,700 upvotes. The lesson that travelled with it: send view-only links. Always.

*Source: [r/recruitinghell · 3.7k upvotes](https://scoop.upworthy.com/applicant-revokes-link-after-being-ghosted-recruiter-calls-him-back-fp)*
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