Downeast Cider House interview questions

Extremely unprofessional and unethical hiring process. They required a take home project (creating brand concepts) before I was even allowed to speak with a hiring manager. I submitted the work and despite multiple follow ups to both the recruiter and the hiring manager, I was completely ghosted. Asking for free labor and spec work without even the basic courtesy of a response is a massive red flag.

Echoing many other reviewers, this was a bad experience all around, and I should have listened to my gut earlier in the process. I applied online, and a couple of days later was asked to do a behavioral assessment (45 min). After that, I did a video call/HR screen with the President of the company. This is where the first red flag was. There was no preamble to tell me a little about Downeast, to tell me about the role, or to tell me about himself. Immediately, I was thrust into answering questions. I felt like I had just gotten grilled and left with no understanding of the company or the position. After this, they asked me to complete a project and gave me a doc of parameters and a massive excel spreadsheet to extract data. This easily took 3+ hours to parse through data, come up with an idea, and make the presentation. Weeks later, they invited me to a 1-hour interview with the hiring manager. Half of the interview was spent going through my project, and the other half was spent asking me questions. Again, I got very little time to ask a few questions myself. I followed up promptly, thanking the interviewer via email. I followed up at the 3 times after that over the course of 5 weeks. No response. It is extremely frustrating and disrespectful to potential candidates to receive no response after hours of work and interviewing (not to mention giving free ideas). If this is any reflection of how Downeast treats its employees, I don't want to work there, and neither should you.