I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Portrait (Los Angeles, CA) in Sep 2025
Interview
They asked me for a "Spec Work" during the interview. Review their product, offer suggestions, analyse opportunites. Even asked to make a prototype and write a PRD. That's unreal! There is a clear opportunity to use these interviews to cut down product management costs by obtaining candidates' work for free.
Funny thing is that they always made it look like I was a good fit until I handed in and explained my work to them.
Thankfully, since I already suspected it could be a "fake" recruitment process, I didn't spend much time on the assignment.
Just being clear, I don't have any proof of their malicious intent. I'm just pointing out the evidence here in case someone wants to know more about Portrait's recruitment process.
To whom it may concern, salary ranges were below average for the US, and they were targeting remote candidates.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Review their product, suggest an improvement, write a full PRD about it, and prototype the solution. Essentially, a significant amount of unnecessary work for a recruitment process that could be used even if the candidate was discarded.
They required drafting and presenting case studies and actually said "you do not need to take more than 48 hours to prepare" . They were seeking free consulting advice and not intending to hire anyone.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Spend 48 hours to create case studies and present them to the CEO and Med Dir.