Stride Consulting interview questions

I went through the screening, interview with the hiring manager, and another round of panel interviews with software design-related questions and a leetcode challenge without any issues. I successfully completed the coding challenge and answered all the questions. However, I received a response stating they chose another candidate, which was surprising to me.

First interview is with the recruiter who mentioned there would be an assignment as the next step before the second interview which was a physical meeting with the founder. Things seemed off when my interviewer eluded to a political opinion on Elon Musk which seemed to me as an unprofessional thing to mention in an interview but my alarm bells really went off when I saw the assignment was a VERY detailed lead generation plan that although had no time limit, I was advised that most “candidates” return this within 72 hours. Left a really bad taste in my mouth and I wondered if the job posting was actually legit. Beware of companies asking you to create such detailed plans and processes. This should be something you create when you have the job, not during the interview process. To be fair, I cannot prove that this company was trying to take advantage of candidates without any intention of hiring someone. What I’m saying is this is not a normal practice and typically, companies who ask for this level of detail during the interview process are seen as ill-intentioned. I ended up withdrawing my candidacy because of this. Do not create detailed plans for companies until you have the job. The good companies, in my experience, would never ask.