Job-hunt quandary →[More:]
I had a job interview on Thursday for what seems like an interesting job. The work is, if not *right* up my alley, at least adjacent to the alley. (Admittedly, my alley involves a lot more napping than most jobs allow.)

My only major qualm is that it doesn't pay spectacularly well -- I'd really like to be earning the uppermost amount of the range cited in the posting. But I figure I'd have to see when it came time to negotiate.

In short, this is not the position I'm most hoping to get, but I'm not in a position to turn anything down right now. And as far as not-first-choice jobs go, it's a pretty good one with interesting perks.

Anyway. The guy (basically the only guy) seemed interested in me and my qualifications, and explained to me why -- the position is really for a generalist who knows about and enjoys a range of subjects and tasks. This is me. His other applicants, apparently, had more specialized backgrounds. Okay.

I didn't feel the interview went very well. We were pressed for time, and he asked perhaps 100 questions in rapid fire. I didn't have a chance to satisfactorily answer any of them. Sometimes I would be in the middle of answering and he'd cut me off to ask the next one. It wasn't an aggressive style, just very rapid and hurried, so I don't feel it's a bad sign about his personality.

I kept up okay, but I felt like I wasn't answering anything particularly well, and thus wasn't able to represent myself as well as I would have liked to. That said, he still seemed interested in me. I have a strong sense that I'm the lead candidate.

Yesterday he sent me some stuff to do as a test. It's a list of seven or eight projects, and he asked that I pick five of them to do by April 2nd. This will be quite a bit of work. It's not work that he can use, like assignments an employee should be doing, but rather tests of a sort. Things to test my abilities and knowledge. For example, one is to research a certain topic and create a 10-slide presentation on a subject (not to present, but to create the material); another is to critique an informal taxonomy on another subject. This involves first researching the topic enough to be comfortable critiquing other people's informed opinions on it.

While I'm interested in the job, I feel a little weird about this. It's more than I have ever done to secure a job, and I'm weirded out by doing hours and hours of work unpaid. I do feel if I do it well, I have a good chance of getting the job, and thus, I will probably do it. But I can't shake the discomfort I have with this request.

Does anyone have any stories/advice about situations like this? Have you been through a similar process, and if so, how did you rationalize it? Am I crazy for feeling icky about it?

I hope this makes sense. Let me know if you need specifics about anything.