He had reached the third round for an account management role at a company whose industry and products he had never worked in. The company knew that. To test him, they sent a detailed case study: research a partner’s financial results, dig through quarterly reports and presentations, map a host of competitors and what they sell, then work out purchase frequency, promotional calendars and brands in a category he did not know.
He fed it into an AI assistant to get started. The deck that came back was confused. So he asked the assistant how long a person should expect it to take. The answer: 25 to 35 hours for a draft at the level described, four to five working days. A thinner first pass: 12 to 15 hours.
He wrote that he would do it, because he needed the job. He also wanted to know what to say back — how to tell them the assignment was unreasonable, and that there were better ways for him to learn the industry once he was being paid to be in it.