Company ghosts employee after 8 interviews and a take-home project — then calls in panic 24 hours later

Job hunting can be a tedious business with all the assessments, several rounds of interviews, and sometimes all you get is a "no." In the case of one Reddit user, a "no" would have been better than getting ghosted and used by the company.

On March 10, u/Delicious_Pepper_980 shared their experience while applying for a senior position at an 80-year-old company. After the third interview, they were asked to work on a "take-home assignment," which included a full project plan and mockups. Everything went extremely well, and they managed to clear five more interviews all the way up to VP. Then? Radio silence.

Over a span of a week, the user called, emailed, and sent follow-ups, but no one responded. They realized they were ghosted by the company and did the only thing they could: revoke the access link to the assignment. Like a charm, within less than 24 hours, the recruiter called with "good news". "Then he casually mentioned that the reviewing team couldn't open my presentation, and asked if I could just email him the PDF. Busted," the user wrote.

The employee realized that the company was using them. The company had, in fact, faked a job opening so applicants would do the work for free, without having to pay them. The user shared one important tip while applying for jobs: "Something I learned to do a while ago is to never send the source files themselves. I always send a view-only link to the presentation and make sure that printing and downloading are disabled."

Knowing that they have the upper hand, the user calmly explained to the recruiter that they did not wish to send the source files. They were aware of how companies exploit applicants by using their 'interview' assignments. However, as a solution, they said that they would happily present their work again in front of the team. The recruiter was not happy with that and abruptly disconnected the call. 

On the same day, the recruiter called again, but sounded tense. "He said I had put him in a very bad position. Apparently, they had to collect all the shortlisted projects, and mine was one of only four they wanted to present internally. Since my link wasn't working, it made the HR manager look bad." The recruiter even tried to gaslight them by saying, "He even tried to say that I was the one taking things personally when hiring is supposed to be professional."

The user responded by saying, "Hiring is indeed a business, and I would have gladly accepted a simple 'no, thank you.' But to ghost me after all that work, and clearly still intend to use my project? That's what made it personal. You're the one who crossed that line, not me." The recruiter went silent for a few seconds, and the applicant hung up.

The hiring process is not always easy-breezy for either the recruiters or the applicants. A survey conducted by Fernandes et al. to analyze the academic job market between May 2018 and May 2019 revealed what 317 respondents thought of the hiring process. The reports claimed, "the hiring process was unnecessarily stressful, time-consuming, and lacking in feedback, irrespective of outcome."

Another research done by the Candidate Experience Benchmark Research and Awards Program in 2023 revealed that there were three reasons why candidates usually "withdrew from the hiring process." These are "their time being disrespected due to poor communication or never receiving feedback, the process taking too long, and the salary not meeting their expectations." It also reported, "36 percent of candidates [in the U.S.] reported that they had not heard back from employers one to two months after they applied, which is unchanged from 2022." 

In just seven days, the Reddit post has over 3.7k upvotes and more than 100 comments. The majority of the comments agreed with what the user did to protect their work, while some shared similar instances they faced while applying for jobs. u/lemme_just_say wrote, "This is nuts and good for you. That’s too many interviews, too. At some point they’re not going to learn more they just have to take the leap with someone."

u/Jedi-Serenity2021 commented, "You handled that excellent and very professional, i am taking notes :)" u/Educational-Rise5124 wrote, "People need to stop doing free work. If they want projects, they need to pay for your time. As simple as that. No employer you would want to work for does this."

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