I was cold contacted through email. They had found my work online. After we got through the phone interview I was asked to do an assignment. Redesign the onboarding of their app.
Personally I find unpaid assignments to be unethical. Especially if the assignment is to redesign a part of the actual product which is essentially 'spec work'.
I would suggest in the future that assignments be more detached, "Can you please design a one pager that shows off a product that you like?".
Or...
Provide an allowance so that it doesn't feel like free sweat labor. It doesn't have to be much just a symbolic gesture so that the candidate isn't being ask for something for nothing...
Which leads me to the second red flag...
I did the assignment anyway and shipped it off. I didn't hear back, over two days, and so I followed up and was told I would receive a response in the coming week. It's been months and I haven't heard anything. I would have expected at the very least an update response - "Thanks, but we're going to pursue other candidates".
Honestly, I would never work for this company. My treatment indicates that they have little to no experience working with designers. The lack of respect is a massive red flag and their assignment ask is doubly so. It takes a modicum of mutual respect to fire off an email update.
I would warn other designers against interviewing here.