Comment by Gualdrapo
5 months ago
I've been posting on HN's "who wants to be hired" and "freelancer" posts, and for the last couple months all I've got have been suspiciously similar emails from randoms asking me to schedule an online interview for a great "opportunity". They never state exactly what that "opportunity" is about. After some hours of not participating on it they will write again - have got three of them, from different gmail emails, all of them following the same script.
As the economy enters recession there's going to be more and more desperate people and criminals will exploit this.
As with OP's case, do not accept take home assignments unless they are FANG famous or very close to that.
In addition, opacity about opportunities should be #1 flag. There is no reason for someone serious to be opaque about filling a role and then increasing the amount of vetting. Also there is no reason to not telling you salary (this alone will help you filter out low paying jobs) for the same reason.
Usually hiring managers will look to always filter down list of candidates not increase them (unless they were lazy or looking to waste time).
My reasoning is even simpler: I've been ghosted or had interviews canceled way too much even by legitimate companies after doing their assignments in these last few years. If you want to give me homework, I need some of your time first.It's become too easy to waste mine.