So I'm not sure if this happened to anyone here but I noticed this is unscrupulous practice in my country. Companies advertising for marketing/Comms professionals and then to 'test' our skills they set up a brief much like an actual brief to 'test' our skills.

Weeks later we see an idea pop out that looks oddly similar to the brief we were tested on.

My friends in the community have spotted similar trends when they interview for jobs and are wary with test briefs that are oddly specific.

How can we combat this?

EDIT: For context I was tested by one company (let's call it B), spent a week researching and generating the deck, I was rejected from the position but later found out from a friend who was already working in company B that they changed the PPT theme of my deck and used it to pitch for a client. She quickly took photos of the presentation and sent it to me to verify.