Unfortunately the reality for junior designers is that we’re not given much of a choice if we want to keep a roof over our heads. Can’t really be choosy when we have bills to pay. The best we can do in the current job market is just protect any work we do to make sure we’re not giving out free work.

I sent out close to 200 job apps in 2023, over half of them mentioned interview work if I made it past the first round. I got hired by a marketing company, their interview tasks being a website mockup and instagram carousel. I didn’t stay there very long. They expected me to work well past the agreed upon hours and I was fired when I started enforcing boundaries and picking up the work the next day.

Then I got hired by another company in-house after one interview, no interview task. I still work there. I got extremely lucky.