Companies like this don't deserve good candidates the way they treat them. Spec work and then no feedback on your work after you spend 8-10 hours+ on it working for free. What a nightmare. Lesson learned - from now I am going to assume that anyone that treats a candidate like that would be a horrible employer to work for and will refuse from now on. A quick design exercise or a code problem during the actual interview are one thing, but this was way above and beyond for not compensating you for it.

It was the most disconnected application I've submitted. I can't remember the initial application but a few days later I received the email about doing a sample exercise. You log in and they have some instructions on what to do. But it's very vague, they say you can change anything they require, don't copy, etc. The exercise is a lot of work overall, a homepage design, 2 banner ads, and a tshirt. This is becoming the norm for any job it seems but there isn't an indication of how long they expect you to spend or any compensation (which every other job has done). At the end I received an email that they wouldn't move forward but couldn't provide any feedback. I could have been passed by from some technical reason or something they perceived as copying, or they just didn't like it. Although the idea is to be free of any preconceived judgement, this whole exercise could be avoided by just looking at work submitted. Design work really is an iterative process and I don't think their process captures this.