The phone interview went well, the recruiter was nice and very responsive to emails up until this point. After the phone interview, I was sent a writing exercise that had a deadline of 3-4 days. I completed the exercise in the time frame and didn't hear back, not even a email confirming they received it. I followed up 2 weeks later and got an email that told me they were in the late stages of hiring for the role with a couple candidates. Basically, I did the writing exercise for nothing, no one looked at it, and they didn't even bother to tell me. Time is not free, especially in this day and age, and I spent most of my free time that weekend working on the exercise. Rude and unprofessional.