Advanced Education Research & Development Fund interview questions

Saw this job online and was hesitant to apply because it seemed very confused. The ad went on and on without being clear, and had paragraphs about the leadership style of the supervisor (a red flag). Was not going to apply until a recruiter - from Daniels Talent Solutions - reached out and said I might be a good fit. Organized call with recruiter, spent half an hour asking him questions, tested him to see if he thought I was indeed a good fit. He assured me yes, urged me to apply, and urged me to apply ASAP because he was setting up interviews THAT WEEK. Now, the application required not just the standard stuff but had extra questions I needed to answer. It took some time to get that together: this was part of my reticence. Applied the next day and ... silence. Eventually, months later, rejection. So it seems to me I was used to pad out the applicant pool. It wasted my time and I don't appreciate it.

Typical question/answer format, however I was required to do an assignment ahead of the interview. The assignment had a prompt but it involved much more effort beyond the one-hour time limit they asked for because they wanted the assignment to align specifically to their org's tenets which are rooted from academia. They provided a slide deck but factoring in the time to research, provide analysis, and a design wireframe took closer to three hours rather than the one. I had considered withdrawing ahead of the interview because I knew the assignment would take longer but decided to go forward with it anyway.