I applied online, was contacted by a recruiter via e-mail and scheduled back-to-back interviews with her and the hiring manager for the next day. Everything went very quickly and I liked their speed in communicating with me...until I was given an "assignment." I was told the hiring manager wanted to see my writing style and was told I had 48 hours to draft a blog post, 12 powerpoint slides and a short social media strategy on the topic. I enjoyed the assignment and was thrilled to send in my work. Three weeks then passed, and I didn't even get a note saying that they had received my work. I finally followed up with the recruiter, who then told me they were hiring someone else. Yes, it hurt to be rejected, and I do realize that companies do not respond to applicants as often as we would like. However, when I do a fully-customized writing assignment as part of the interview process, some validation would go a long way. I thought that was extremely unprofessional.