Companies routinely exploit candidates through take-home assignments.
They often assign work that directly overlaps with their current projects or upcoming client deliverables. Instead of evaluating problem-solving ability, these assignments become a mechanism to extract free labor.
This practice peaked during COVID, when hiring volumes were high and candidates were desperate. Many companies leveraged that imbalance to maximize unpaid output under the guise of assessment.
A legitimate take-home test is small, synthetic, and clearly disconnected from production. Anything else is a red flag.
this is the horror story of exploitation through take-away assignment
Incident 1:
During peak COVID (May–July 2020) I was transitioning into tech industry as front-end developer. After many rejections, I finally started getting interviews. One company gave me a complex take-home: a landing page with heavy animations and micro-interactions. I delivered, zipped the code, shared it. HR confirmed receipt, CC’d the manager, and the manager replied: “I’ll review and provide feedback soon.”
Then silence. HR stopped responding. Weeks later, I checked their website and saw the same landing page live as part of a client project. My code wasn’t complete, but it was clearly salvaged.
Incident 2:
Another company. Same pattern. Take-home assignment → shortlisted → interview → offer. They lowballed me ~60% below a fresher package and added a 1-year bond. I accepted out of desperation.
On day 1 standup, a teammate shared screen. He was using my take-home assignment code inside their production project.
I was terminated on day 3.
I’m honestly so sorry you went through this. That’s not just a red flag - that’s straight-up exploitation.
I’ve definitely seen similar patterns with take-home assignments. Sometimes they were presented as “just a small task, maybe three hours, one evening”… and then it turned out to be basically a full mini-application.
In my case, what often “saved” me was pure laziness 😅 If something looked too big, too vague, or suspiciously close to real production work, I simply didn’t feel like doing it. I was lucky to have that choice.
But what about people who are desperately looking for a job? That’s the hard part. When you really need an offer, it’s much harder to say no - and unfortunately some companies know that.
Thank you for sharing this. Stories like yours are important, even if they’re painful.
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Companies routinely exploit candidates through take-home assignments.
They often assign work that directly overlaps with their current projects or upcoming client deliverables. Instead of evaluating problem-solving ability, these assignments become a mechanism to extract free labor.
This practice peaked during COVID, when hiring volumes were high and candidates were desperate. Many companies leveraged that imbalance to maximize unpaid output under the guise of assessment.
A legitimate take-home test is small, synthetic, and clearly disconnected from production. Anything else is a red flag.
this is the horror story of exploitation through take-away assignment
Incident 1:
During peak COVID (May–July 2020) I was transitioning into tech industry as front-end developer. After many rejections, I finally started getting interviews. One company gave me a complex take-home: a landing page with heavy animations and micro-interactions. I delivered, zipped the code, shared it. HR confirmed receipt, CC’d the manager, and the manager replied: “I’ll review and provide feedback soon.”
Then silence. HR stopped responding. Weeks later, I checked their website and saw the same landing page live as part of a client project. My code wasn’t complete, but it was clearly salvaged.
Incident 2:
Another company. Same pattern. Take-home assignment → shortlisted → interview → offer. They lowballed me ~60% below a fresher package and added a 1-year bond. I accepted out of desperation.
On day 1 standup, a teammate shared screen. He was using my take-home assignment code inside their production project.
I was terminated on day 3.
I’m honestly so sorry you went through this. That’s not just a red flag - that’s straight-up exploitation.
I’ve definitely seen similar patterns with take-home assignments. Sometimes they were presented as “just a small task, maybe three hours, one evening”… and then it turned out to be basically a full mini-application.
In my case, what often “saved” me was pure laziness 😅 If something looked too big, too vague, or suspiciously close to real production work, I simply didn’t feel like doing it. I was lucky to have that choice.
But what about people who are desperately looking for a job? That’s the hard part. When you really need an offer, it’s much harder to say no - and unfortunately some companies know that.
Thank you for sharing this. Stories like yours are important, even if they’re painful.