A disturbing new hiring practice is emerging across India's technology and consulting landscape, where interviews for senior roles are being covertly transformed into sessions for extracting free, high-value strategic work. This trend, highlighted by a recent viral Reddit post from a seasoned professional, raises serious ethical questions about power imbalances and the real cost of lengthy assessment rounds as companies rush to rebrand themselves as AI-driven product entities.
From Interview to Unpaid Transformation Project
The incident that sparked widespread discussion involved a senior candidate with prior Big Four experience. This professional was interviewing with an Ahmedabad-based firm that traditionally provides outsourced taxation and accounting services for the US market. The company expressed a clear ambition: to pivot from a service provider to an AI automation product company to achieve scale and international expansion.
However, the firm reportedly possessed no existing AI capabilities, no automation framework, and no internal product team. The role being discussed was nothing short of leading a complete digital and AI transformation from the ground up. Early in the process, salary expectations were formally documented by the HR department. Over the course of five intensive interview rounds, discussions moved from the candidate's past experience to deeply detailed, execution-oriented plans for building large-scale automation systems.
The "Assessment" That Crossed All Lines
The situation escalated when the candidate was assigned a "test assignment." This was not a generic case study. The task required submitting a comprehensive, detailed strategy to transform the entire organization using artificial intelligence. The candidate delivered a full-scale roadmap spanning 12 and 24 months, outlining precisely how to convert manual tax processes into AI-driven workflows.
The submission included granular process mapping, automation logic for document processing and account reconciliation, specifics on required AI and machine learning models for each stage, and even algorithm-level flowcharts. It also featured a competitor analysis and a product expansion strategy for the US market. In essence, this work mirrored a paid consulting deliverable or an internal product blueprint, far exceeding the bounds of a standard hiring evaluation.
Following the submission, the company's founder responded positively and discussed a well-defined leadership role encompassing both technology development and market expansion. HR reportedly confirmed that compensation would align with the candidate's previously stated expectations. Encouraged, the candidate even undertook additional taxation courses to deepen domain knowledge while awaiting the final offer.
The outcome, however, was a stark reversal. The company later sent a brief, discouraging reply stating they were still evaluating other candidates and that the budget for the position was now lower than what was initially communicated.
Why This Pattern Alarms the Professional Community
What makes this experience particularly unsettling is the sequence of events. The company acknowledged salary expectations early, then requested and received extensive unpaid strategic work, gave verbal commitments, and only afterwards revealed supposed budget constraints. For many professionals, this pattern clearly crosses the line into the extraction of free intellectual labour.
Career experts note this is becoming increasingly common, especially as traditional service firms attempt a hasty "pivot to AI" without fully grasping the investments required. Lacking internal expertise and clarity, these companies may—deliberately or not—use senior candidates as sources of ready-made strategy.
Senior professionals are uniquely vulnerable in this scenario. Unlike entry-level hires, they are evaluated on "what they can build," making them targets for over-scoped assessments. The risks are significant: strategy documents, roadmaps, and system designs are proprietary insights shaped by years of experience. Once shared, candidates lose all control over how that information is used. Furthermore, normalising such practices erodes professional boundaries across India's burgeoning tech industry.
Guidance for Jobseekers and a Warning for Employers
While formal recourse is often limited, career advisors recommend greater caution. Candidates for AI leadership roles should consider sharing high-level frameworks instead of execution-ready plans. They should seek clarity on how assessment work will be used and document all compensation discussions in writing. Early warning signs like vague budgets, shifting role expectations, and excessive "tests" often indicate deeper organisational indecision.
For employers, this trend serves as a serious warning. As India positions itself as a global hub for AI and automation, ethical and transparent hiring practices will come under greater scrutiny. Genuine transformation cannot be built on ambiguous commitments or unpaid expertise. If companies seek world-class AI strategy, they must be prepared to value it—ethically, transparently, and fairly.
