Hey all – would love some advice re: a current interview situation of mine. I’m in the final stages of interviewing for a content marketing role with a pretty big company that would be great for my career if things worked out. However, the final stage is a hefty assignment – it’s presenting a set of recommendations for what content I’d create for a current/existing (not hypothetical) program, giving ideas on how to drive further organic traffic, and a measurement approach. They also ask that this person evaluates their current content and share an approach to building a content program that would benefit their audience + business. Basically giving them an entire content strategy. This is unpaid and the only disclaimer was “don’t spend more than 2 hours on this”, which they always say, but the research alone for the assignment would be 2 hours. I’d likely spend another 2-3 on writing it out, putting it into a presentation, and finessing it. They can also very easily just use my ideas and my work even if I don’t get the job. I’ve had something like this happen before where they took an interview assignment of mine and used it. They are a very well-known company, but I still have some doubts. 1) Is this okay for a hiring team to do? 2) I want to protect myself/my time/my work, but I also want the job. They likely know this and could be putting candidates through to see who makes it through. What would be some appropriate questions to ask the team? I’d love to know how many people they have in the final stage.

Possibilities you might consider: • Letting them know how much time and effort it would take to do the assignment to the caliber that you think professional. Offering to do that as a paid assignment. • Offering to walk them through how you'd approach the assignment, without actually doing it. • Offering to walk them through previous relevant work that you've done and voicing over how you'd think about it differently to meet their business needs. I'd suggest discussing that matter of factly, no apologies or such. For instance, something along the lines of, I understand that you folks would like to assess my skills. I'd love to do that in a way that reflects how I work as a professional. Here are some possibilities I'd suggest: (Then bullet the possibilities that you're willing to do.) Then see how they react — that will help you assess them. If you communicate professionally and they don't agree to that, you can always reassess and decide your next steps.

This is literally a request I’ve been given as a candidate as well. “Put together a content strategy to help us launch into a brand new vertical … but don’t spend more than a few hours on it.” lolololokaylolol. I approached the project by focusing on the strategy and how to implement the strategy, not actually doing the work and presenting my findings. They DID call me out on that during my presentation and my response was, “That type of research is the actual job you’d be hiring me for and the research would have taken me much longer than the time allotment you suggested. The strategy I’m covering now will work for any vertical you’d like step into.” I was offered the job but ultimately turned it down because I got a better offer. I agree with the previous response than if you’re professional in how push back on their ask, they’ll understand that your strategy is what they’re hiring, not the specific research.

I've had this exact experience so I feel you! I did the second thing Maggie suggested: I showed how I would approach the assignment rather than providing final deliverables. This still took some time to prepare but I felt more comfortable with the output. I did not apologize or justify myself, but presented this work with confidence, knowing that it showed my ability to do the assignment. (I'd say it also showed professionalism and respect for my own values, but I don't want to pat myself on the back too much...) The team was happy with what I shared and I got an offer. If they were to have said anything about my approach to the assignment, I would have responded in a similar way to Stephanie. If you don't feel confident taking that approach without giving the team a heads up, by all means have a talk with the hiring manager. If they seem incredibly rigid, you have to decide whether it's worth the time and risk that it doesn't pay off (and they use your work anyway). I'd argue that any team that dictates exactly how work should be done probably wouldn't be great to collaborate with on a day-to-day basis.

Thank you @white-potato-56800, @strong-vegetable-22635 & @orange-window-58181! Super appreciate what you have all shared. I will be reaching out to the recruiter/hiring manager on their end with some questions. And will definitely keep these points in mind as I work through the assignment. I was debating if I want to follow through with it, but I’m leaning towards just doing it and sharing my approach only – not executing.

Hey Jocelyn, how did it go? I’d love to know, I’m curious about their reaction. For context, I found myself in a similar situation years back where they also asked for a lot and gave me 2 hours—so I worked for about 1h30, left the document full of parenthetical [to be researched] and [to be investigated] notes and spent zero time making it look good... then recorded a 10-minute Loom video to explain how I would have continued had I had the time that was realistically needed to do it properly. They liked the approach and I got the job, but it was a bit of a gamble. Maggie’s suggestion makes way more sense than what I did 😄