I aced an interview at a trendy Manchester agency, and the manager, Alistair, gave me a “small test task.” It turned into three days of unpaid work: a full social strategy, blog posts, and competitor analysis for a luxury watch brand. I poured my best ideas into it—then got a cold rejection with no feedback.
A week later, I saw my exact campaign live. The hook, messaging, audience segments, even the hashtags—everything was taken from my unpaid work. A lawyer friend said proving it would be tough without a contract.
Instead of staying quiet, I contacted the brand’s Creative Director, Penelope, and sent timestamps of my original work. She was furious. The agency had charged them a huge fee, claiming the ideas were created in-house. They were fired immediately.
Then she asked me to run the campaign myself.
I landed a freelance contract at triple the agency salary. Later, I discovered Alistair had told the client I “lacked creative spark” while secretly stealing my ideas to protect himself.
The rejection wasn’t a loss—it saved me from working for someone who would’ve claimed my success as his own. Now I run my own consultancy and never ask candidates for unpaid work.
Lesson: If a company doesn’t respect your time in the interview, they won’t respect you in the job. Protect your work. Know your worth. Sometimes rejection is redirection.