Job candidate charges hiring manager $500 fee in exchange for completing their take-home assignment: 'I am sick of the 24 take-home tests for mid-level roles'

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Jun 1, 2026 2:30 PM EDT

No one should work for free, not even job candidates!

It's always important to remember that just because you're looking for a job does not mean that you have to put in hours upon hours of unpaid labor in order to prove yourself worthy of employment. This developer had been looking for a new job opportunity for a while now and was sick and tired of having to carve out significant portions of his free time outside of work, doing assignments for future employers that they should already know and trust he was capable of completing.

He shared his new strategy for dealing with this phenomenon with the r/interviewhammer subreddit community. That strategy consisted of charging employers a flat fee any time they asked him to complete assignments that he knew would take longer than three hours to finish. Believe it or not, he actually saw results from this strategy.

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  • A male and female subject represent a job candidate and a recruiter sitting across from one another for an interview.
    via Mina Rad

    A male and female subject represent a job candidate and a recruiter sitting across from one another for an interview.

  • I started charging for take-home tests and it is the best filter ever

    I have been in this industry for fifteen years and I am sick of the twenty hour take-home tests for mid-level roles. Last month a recuiter sent me a "small" assignment that involved building a full-stack dashboard with real- time updates and auth. They
    via BakeryComet
  • called it a simple assessment but any dev knows that is a two day job if you want it to look professional. I looked at my schedule and decided that my weekends are worth more than a vague promise of a second round
    via BakeryComet
  • interview. I sent a reply stating that I am happy to complete the task but I bill a flat fee of five hundred dollars for any technical evaluation that takes more than three hours.
    via BakeryComet
  • A female model posing as a recruiter holding a resume on a clipboard.
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

    A female model posing as a recruiter holding a resume on a clipboard.

  • One element of this anecdote that is genuinely inspiring is the job candidate's point that the minute he stopped acting like he was desperate and in need of something to prove, he actually started to be treated with respect from recruiters and hiring managers alike.

    Sure, every time he explained to potential employers that he would not be completing assignments without charging a fee, there was a 50/50 chance that the interview process would end right there. However, every so often, he actually was taken seriously. This not only showed that a certain company might be a decent place to work, but it also vastly reduced any time wasted on employment opportunities that were unlikely to come to fruition.

    For more employment debacles, here is one story about a coworker who kept leaving passive-aggressive notes and another piece about an employee who was unjustly fired because of a LinkedIn post.

  • The silence was immediate. It was like I had insulted their entire family. One manager realy emailed me back saying that asking for pay is "unprofessional"
    via BakeryComet
  • and shows a lack of passion for the company mission. I told him my passion does not pay my mortgage and that if they value my expertise they should value my time. Most of these
    via BakeryComet
  • companies are just looking for free labor or a way to see who is desperate enough to jump through hoops without questioning the process. It is a
    via BakeryComet
  • massive red flag if a firm cannot afford a few hundred bucks to vet a senior candidate but expects you to commit forty hours a week to their legacy mess.
    via BakeryComet
  • An image representing a job candidate completing an assignment on a Macbook Pro.
    via Glenn Carstens-Peters

    An image representing a job candidate completing an assignment on a Macbook Pro.

  • I have used this approach four times now. Three of them ghosted me instantly which saved me about sixty hours of unpaid work. The fourth company actually agreed and sent me a contract for the evaluation fee.
    via BakeryComet
  • They were the most organized team I have ever interviewed with and the technical lead actually respected my boundaries. It turns
    via BakeryComet
  • out that when you stop acting like a beggar you start getting treated like a consultant. My hit rate for interviews is lower now but the quality of the conversations is ten
    via BakeryComet
  • times better. I am never going back to doing free homework for people who do not even know what a stack trace is .
    via BakeryComet
  • A photographic depiction of a male interviewee sitting across from a female recruiter.
    via Mina Rad

    A photographic depiction of a male interviewee sitting across from a female recruiter.

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