Performing without Pay: The Relentless Reality in Today’s Job Market

Hearst Tower, Midtown Manhattan

This summer, the Labor Department noted that the number of unemployed people—7.2 million—changed little and that over 1.8 million people have been unemployed for more than 27 weeks. For young college graduates and young adults ages 22-27, the struggle is even worse, with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York noting that unemployment rates are at a near-decade high, excluding the pandemic. The rise of AI is also eliminating entry-level and white-collar jobs in tech, finance, and more — pressuring desperate candidates to compete for a role by “performing without pay.”

While performing without pay may seem like a harmless practice at first, it can often turn into a grueling homework assignment without the promise of a reward or graduation. The job application process once required candidates to submit a résumé, a job application letter, and perhaps some references. Now, employers require prospective candidates to jump through numerous unpaid hoops, starting with long interview panels and ending with more demands—from creating mock ad campaigns to completing grueling 24-hour editing tests, conducting audits, and showcasing hundreds of formulas in Excel spreadsheets.

I know from experience. One of my “favorite” homework assignments performing without pay was for Cosmopolitan for Latinas, which ran from 2012 to 2015. The editor sent me an edit test on a Tuesday morning. She requested I return the edit test by Thursday, even though I needed to conduct thorough research on the company’s brand and voice, reading and studying in-depth articles before brainstorming, strategizing, and executing the scope of work.

Nevertheless, I took that daunting homework assignment seriously, clearing my schedule and consulting a dear editor friend at Newsweek for final feedback.

The edit test instructions alone were 2,000 words. They asked me to complete all of the following with a Cosmo for Latinas audience in mind:

I had to come up with 20 heds and deks for stories I thought could run on Cosmo for Latinas in a given day, covering a mix of categories: sex/relationships; entertainment/celeb; style/beauty; career/women's issues/politics. My heds and deks needed to include news posts, features, and evergreen content. I needed to pick a day to do this, so I was working with that day's news.

I also had to provide a tweet and Facebook status for 10 of my ideas. I then needed to provide a list of several freelancers I would recruit. I also had to come up with two regular franchises that could run on Cosmo for Latinas (Examples: Get That Life, Ask Logan). I had to write news stories about Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony’s divorce, as well as another news story on immigration. Lastly, I had to edit two stories to make them suitable to run on Cosmo for Latinas. One story featured John Leguizamo and his new movie, Chef. 

I killed the edit test, finally uploading my homework assignment to my email and clicking send. It landed me an interview at Cosmo for Latinas at Hearst Tower in Manhattan. The interview went well, too.

Or so I’d thought. 

But unfortunately, Cosmo for Latinas decided to go with a different candidate without so much as breaking up with me first.

Obviously, that meant I had to stalk this different candidate online. Yes, I stalked employers and employees online as if they were an unrequited love, and as if that would help me with the grieving process. Because one of the saddest parts about the practice of performing without pay is what happens to candidates who don't get chosen. If all those tests and hoops don’t pay off with a real-paying job, many candidates pre-emptively sign a contract stating they cannot sue the company if they use similar ideas or content. Essentially, these companies are taking advantage of candidates by having them work for them for free.

Even more, the candidates have already become committed to an employer and role. After putting in the hours and hard work, they get excited and start envisioning a promising new future with that employer. But when they are rejected and even ghosted after all that hard work—often without so much as the slightest response or automated rejection letter—it’s personal.

After all, the employer took the candidates out to dinner, invited them into their world, and showed them what kind of life they could have together. They lured the candidate into bed but didn’t call the next day. However, there are easier ways to date. A few of those ways include kindly asking candidates to provide a portfolio of previous work, references, and/or clips.

Breaking up is hard to do, but hopefully, on this tough Labor Day, employers can remember that there are better ways to choose candidates than sleeping with them and ghosting them the next day. Requiring candidates to perform without pay lacks respect, compassion, humanity, empathy—all those pretty little soft skills their HR departments seek when hiring the right candidate.

Asking candidates to perform without pay dangles the hope of a paycheck that rarely comes. This toxic practice turns the hiring process into a prolonged, unpaid job, preying on people’s dreams and desperation. If employers can't be team players, then they have no business soliciting business or inviting others to join their team.