A candidate for a brand-manager role made it through three rounds of interviews before the company handed over the deciding task: a six-page take-home project requiring strategic thinking and professional-level output. The brief was detailed and the expectations were explicit. Completion was mandatory to remain in consideration.
They worked for eight hours on research and consulting-level analysis, then spent another hour assembling presentation materials. Nine hours in total.
Then came the email. The company was "going in a different direction." No feedback on the work. No acknowledgment of the time.
The candidate sent back an itemised invoice. Eight hours of research and consulting at $100 per hour. One hour of presentation preparation. Total: $900. Payable within 14 days.
The company declined. Multiple times. Their position: the project was optional, part of a standard interview process. The candidate's position: framing work as an "interview exercise" does not exempt a company from compensation obligations when the deliverable holds real commercial value.
The invoice remains unpaid. The Reddit thread does not.