Influence Mobile interview questions

I was contacted by a recruiter who coordinated communication with the CEO's Executive Assistant to arrange a call with the CEO. My call with the CEO went well and I was told by the CEO I'd hear back by the end of the following week. I did not hear back by the end of the following week, and upon following up I learned they had moved forward with candidates who where already familiar with some of the members of the engineering department. I was told by the CEO that they "usually hire connected folks first", which had me wondering why they'd spend time talking to me first if they had familiar candidates queued up.

Approached by a recruiter. Had a conversation with the CEO, and then was given a take home assessment. The assessment took 4-5 hours, and I met the specifications and user stories in every way, and had 100% test coverage. The frontend was pretty bare bones but was done purposefully - over engineering is something other assessments have warned about. But IM seemed like they wanted me to over engineer it. They reached out a couple days later and all they said was "Unfortunately the project isn't quite what we are expecting for this role." Our industry has got to do better than this. People are sacrificing, and forgoing time with their families in the evening to pound out these code assessments, while juggling their current jobs, only to be rejected with no actual feedback? Do better.