a take home test? in THIS economy??

If it seems to you like the media industry is fueled by, yes, a lil bit of monetizable ad space, but mostly everyone’s collective hopes & dreams, then this Slate piece on the insane edit tests / “homework” that job applicants have to do now in exchange for a teeny piece of hope confirms it.

We did a quick survey of some Deez Links readers on the most egregious shit they did for free during a job application process, and the responses are...not great. Respondents are anonymous & exact outlets referenced are sort of redacted, ‘cause duh, we’re not trying to screw anyone over here but we ARE in a gossipy mood.

These are all extremely privilege problems but I was asked to complete a “48-hour edit test,” which I was given on a Friday, over a weekend I had planned a trip to LA, which resulted in my boyfriend reading in coffee shops while I wrote fifteen pages. Didn’t get the job.

I was asked to complete a “take home test” aka create a full G Slides presentation solving one of the company’s major problems. I didn’t have time so I turned down the job lmao.

I asked a friend who applied to the same job as I did at [a trendy & woke young women’s media magazine] and she said she interviewed and completed a full edit test and sent it, and they never replied to her

There were so many times when I dropped job interviews (esp for [a digital media company where people consider themselves edgy AF]) because when you DON’T CURRENTLY HAVE WORK you are balancing time freelancing, aka making actual money, with all these 100 tests you suddenly have to complete. And I’d get three in a week and be like, well I have to turn one of these down bc there is no way I can do three of these and also bang out 40 hours of freelance.

I had a writing test and story ideas. They also had me do a mock newsletter. It took me hours! The thing that sucks is news outlets used to pay for stuff like this. I also wrote two very long memos about beat strategy and story ideas for [a prominent financial newspaper] and didn’t get those jobs either!

Anyway, that Slate piece offers a few ways you can push back on overly demanding edit tests, but we the Deez also recommend just emailing them back with “lol in THIS economy?????” and a laughing-while-sobbing gif of your choice. Let us know how it works!!