Company introduction - turned into a day of my free labour!

[Suade7]

I went for an interview on Monday and a second one on Tuesday and then the Recruitment Agency told me that the company had invited me in for the morning so I could have abit of an intro to the company and see if I liked it. I arrived this morning only to be given loads of paperwork that meant nothing to me and told to design a spreadsheet for the year with professional icons etc - it was a huge job (and one I found out that the Boss had been putting off)! I was due to leave at 1pm, but more work arrived, I completed it and was told to return to the spreadsheet, by 3pm, I had had no break since 9am, I thought enough is enough and told them I was going! Rang the Recruitment Company who were as angry as me - I had given them a day of free labour and learnt nothing about the job I had initially applied for which certainly was not inputting info into an excel spreadsheet all day!! I feel like sending them an invoice! I have not used a Recruitment Agency before though and certainly never done a free introduction day for a company before. Has anybody else ever had any strange experiences like this???
I'd be really interested to hear them? Strange situation, I considered maybe they were testing me - but why not just tell me they were doing that and I would of understood! Won't go back now though!

[Suade7]

Your telling me they were, definitely learnt my lesson!

[Gok Wan]

At least you found out in advance what type of Company they were. Imagine if you took the job and then found out afterwards you would be inputting stuff into spreadsheets all day!

I have used agencies in the past and never come across this type of thing before but I reckon you've had a lucky escape!

[Suade7]

Hi Gok Wan, tell me about it, the reason I put up with it for as long as I did was because at first I thought it was a test, but by 3pm, when I had got all this work completed for them and I had not even been allowed a lunch, I knew something strange was going on. I stil don't know what there true intention was, because there was an available job going but nothing based around the work I was doing!