Methodology

What this is

Round 3 Isn’t Free publishes moderated anonymous self-reports about unpaid work requested during hiring. Submissions are moderated for privacy, plausibility, duplication, and compliance with the House Rules. They are not independently verified.

The archive is not a representative survey. Totals should not be used to estimate how common the practice is in any industry.

Three kinds of information

Reported by contributors: company size (optional), industry, the kind of work requested, level interviewed for, hours, interview process length, and how it ended.

Calculated by us: an estimated market value for each filing and in total.

External research: separate from site submissions. In a 2026 Software Finder survey of 1,020 Americans who had actively job-searched in the previous 18 months, 47% said they had been required to complete unpaid work during an interview process. That survey is not specific to advertising or marketing.

Homepage metrics

Filings: the number of approved filings. Hours reported: the sum of hours contributors reported, across approved filings. Est. market value: the sum of each approved filing’s estimated market value. Paid: the amount contributors reported being paid for the assignment. The ledger accepts unpaid assignments only. Submitters must confirm that they received no payment for the assignment.

How market value is calculated

Calculated using standardized hourly rates by seniority. Rates approximate twice salary-equivalent hourly compensation and are rounded to the nearest $5. These are estimates of market value, not amounts legally owed.

Junior $70, Mid-level $95, Senior $115, Lead / Associate Director $135, Director $160, VP and above $170. Each is average annual salary for the level divided by 2,080 working hours, doubled, and rounded to the nearest $5. The doubling approximates what a freelancer must bill to cover self-employment tax, benefits and unpaid time. It is our assumption, not a published figure. Contributors can’t enter their own rates. The full table and sources are in the rate card.

Ranges and what is published

Hours are published as exact whole numbers. Interview process length is published in two-week ranges. No dates or timestamps are published. Where a combination of fields could point to one interview, moderators generalize it.

Moderation

Every filing is reviewed by a person before publication. Software may flag filings for closer review. It never approves them. Moderators may redact, generalize, normalize formatting, hide or reject. They may not strengthen a claim, add intent, or invent detail.

Outliers and exclusions

Filings reporting more than 20 hours, a process over 8 weeks, or other unusual combinations get extra review and are held out of the totals until approved. Rejected and removed filings are never counted. If an approved filing is later removed, the totals are recalculated without it.

Limits

Contributors are self-selected. We can check that a filing is plausible and safe to publish. We can’t check that it happened.