Yes, always propose paid assignments, otherwise you'll miss many good candidates. Many of them will not explicitly refuse, but just move your company below in t

Yes, always propose paid assignments, otherwise you'll miss many good candidates. Many of them will not explicitly refuse, but just move your company below in the priority queue... This happened to me - i.e. I did move the company back and eventually accepted another offer. If they had proposed me the paid project (instead of unpaid one), I'd immediately started working on it and continue the process...