The author feels that applicants should go beyond just applying - they should be doing free work, proactively, and send it along with their application.

I understand how that would make an applicant stand out. But I wonder if the author understands that there is no way that makes sense in today's hiring market. We'd be burning all of our waking hours doing extra work for applications in order to maybe get a slightly higher chance of getting an initial phone screen. The effort:reward ratio just isn't there.

Now if you want to make sure I'm a real person, and ask me to do something that takes 30 seconds, sure. I'll do that. Maybe even a couple extra minutes. But proposing that applicants do product reviews and build prototypes is absurd and tone-deaf.