Verdigris has some interesting technology, which is what attracted me to them. I sent a resume, and within a few days was contacted by a recruiter (who also just started with the company). I had a short phone interview with the recruiter, who clearly was reading from a canned list of questions. I found that after they asked subsequent questions, I kept on having to repeat my answers, to conform to their question format. I attributed this to the interviewer's inexperience. A few days later, I received an email from the recruiter, saying that their "hiring committee" had reviewed their notes from my interview, and I was required to complete a "take-home exercise", before I would be passed on to actual interviews. I read through their "exercise", and concluded that whoever wrote it never sold in their lives. Right off the bat, there were some issues with their incomplete instructions, for which I reached out to the recruiter for clarification. The recruiter responded 2 days later, which obviously would have put me at a disadvantage if they were looking for fast responses from their candidates (in my case, I have a job, and that is my priority until I make a move, and normally I can't spare this much time for non-productive tasks). In any case, I read over their "exercise", and I came to the realization that I would be creating a sales strategy for this company, even though the recruiter told me that they really didn't have any dedicated sales force, and this wasn't their intention. There was no guarantee of additional interviews, an offer, or compensation for my time if they took my ideas and implemented them in their business (in their defense, they only wanted candidates to spend 90-180 min on the exercise). I then emailed them to withdraw my candidacy. I have had to complete these types of busy work before, but that was generally after several rounds of interviews, not up front as a condition for additional interviews. The company did respond to my withdrawal request, saying that this exercise would reveal a candidate's theoretical reasoning capabilities. However, I responded all the exercise would reveal is that they can write well, in theoretical terms, but anyone who's ever sold for a living knows that sales is not a theoretical endeavor. Tread carefully with this company.