There is this one guy who seems to be well known asking people to send samples of their work to him. I believe the purpose is to give free ideas to companies for their own personal design development.
My story:
I met this recruiter. He told me that he intended to submit my resume for interview purposes. He later asked me for some samples of my portfolio. I gave him almost a dozen samples. He made me believe that the company was seriously interested. Later when I pressed him for information I found out that they never even looked at my resume. He then called me later in panic for additional samples of my portfolio and requested a CD copy of more work.
I knew that was a red flag at that point. I have noticed that a lot of people on coroflot seem to be to willing to show their work and give away free ideas. It’s just too bad that all these companies request to see samples and copies.
After that experience I will never give samples of my work.
it’s your right to know who they are sending your resume to and if they are real professionals they will tell you without you even asking. surely you must know whether this is a real recruting agency!?
keep sending out your samples otherwise you’ll be working agianst yourself.
It’s not just agency recruiters but some i.d. managers too. I had one manager at an audio equipment company constantly asking me for samples and in the end they ended up not hiring anyone. I bent over backwards fro this guy, I’ll never burned again.
could you not put some copy right type thing on your work?
i personally never send a complete project to companies or recruiters, i just send them the best part of it. i guess it’s kind of wishing that that way i leave them wanting for more, obviously not always it works but at least i don’t feel like i’ve given away my work.
I have this friend who told me to put a watermark on all of my work in photoshop with my name on everything. That way if they get clever and try to copy my work they will have some trouble.
The bad thing is that these companies archive all of the samples they receive. Most designers never stop to think what is happening to their portfolio sampler.
I remember giving a sampler to this well known gym shoe company a couple of years ago. They seemed real interested. We had a phone interview and they said they would make arrangements to fly me out. They asked for a sampler, so I sent it and they called me again with interest. They asked for more work and I began to get suspiscious. Later I found out they hadn’t intended on hiring anyone. I requested them to send my portfolio back and they wrote me a nasty letter saying people don’t ask for their sampler back and they don’t get them back. I learned not to give any recruiter or HR person anything. If the resume isn’t enough move on to some other place.
I found out from several professionals that samplers are just ways to get ideas for free and they know most designers are so desperate for employment they will sell themselves down the river for free.
Lay off Deez. Yes, he has a cocky attitude and is mostly negative and sarcastic. But if you look a bit closer he usually makes some VERY valid points… particularly in this case. You NEVER know what is actually going on with a company and if the headhunting service is called Jim Bob’s A-1 recruiting, they probably can’t land you a decent job anyway.
If all else fails, do this.
don’t send out ANYTHING, get as much patents as you can, tap into family savings, refinance, sell everything, etc. Those ideas will change the world. Forget intelligent communication with prospective companies with realistic ID jobs.
Well, but Deez does have good points, salaciously sopping with sarcasm perhaps. Yeah, the ID manager’s boss might have pulled the plug on the budget, the CEO might have clamped down on hiring at the end of the year, the ID manager could have broken his arm CAD monkeying dangerously due to overworked staff. ETC. Or, this could have been a freshman recruiter who got in over his head and is just floundering flappily.
Either way - yes, you should be cautious when working with recruiters. Cautious not to waste your time. But Deez is right - don’t worry about them stealing design ideas. You should be a fountain of new ideas, constantly innovating. I know my first sketch rarely makes it to the final concept for any project. Your best offense to being “knocked off” is to keep innovating.
Hoarding your ideas is arrogant and foolish. It basically admits that you’re not confident enough to produce good ideas on a regular basis and get paid for it.
And so what if people were to steal your ideas? You’d make more money in the settlement than if they hired you. But get real: do you honestly think that people can get away with that kind of stuff these days? Give me an example.
I get resumes all the time without samples or web folios. They go right in the trash. I don’t have time to “guess” how good of a designer they are unless they show me their process, skills and talent.
from the point of view of me trying to hire people.
i go thru like tons of resume per day and work samples…i always ask for work sample becuase you can never base a person on their resume. always see what they have done before you chose who to interview.
1)company dont want to steal your stuff. student stuff is too weak ass and dont even match their plans. they just want to see what you can do for them in term of skills. if you are fresh out of school they not gona take 2 look at your work anyway. and if you think right out of school you are some hot !$@% designer…HAHAHAH good freaking luck finding a job. if they see something they like they will most likely offer you a intern post and test you out for 3 month.
2)professional with working experiance rely a lot on head hunters as well as their own net work. people with 5 plus years has already been around the block and know how to get jobs. they will only show their past work either that has already been produced or that no one wants. they just want to show you their skills that they have done for the past few years. sometime they will ask me what i skills i would need and send samples according to what i asked for. then i see if it is good enough. most importantly they always ask me more details of what the job is and what they will have to do in this new job post.
3)the best way is send your work sample in pdf format. i would say the stuff i get only 2 percent fit what i need to hire people the rest is all crap or dont match what i need. if i need a designer who has done conceumer electronic and some kid send me all furniture designs then i wont even look at it. i hate it when people would say in email saying i am stealing their ideas…wtf…why the hell would i want your crap.
Well most of the time it’s true, they do need to see SAMPLES of your work not just a resume if you want a job. The trick is to show just enough to tease them into an interview. Then blow them away with your portfolio.
The only time I ever felt like someone was trying to take advantage of me was by a local shop which raised some red flags. During my interview, I heard someone whisper to another coworker in the background “she is not supposed to be hiring more people†then about a month later, the owner who interview me gave me a call. Not for a job, they wanted me to actually just drop off my portfolio to show a client.
Since I have been around the block, I knew this was highly unusual as they probably wanted to pass my work off as their own. I could have said F*off if I was younger, but I took a more civilized approach.
Since their premise was, “if the client likes your work we will hire you for the job”, I said, “I would be happy to show my portfolio to your client in your office in person.” They didn’t accept the offer, but I called their bluff. Found out months later they didn’t get that project.
HA, HA
I remember after graduation I was desperate to get a job. I put together this new portfolio.
True story:
I went to this design staffing company, interviewed with this guy who slipped me his card during portfolio recruitment week at school. We sat down and he listens to my explanation of the work. He then takes his ball point pen put it between his lips, looks up at the ceiling and says, “I have an idea I want you to leave your portfolio with me for a couple of days because I want to show it to some people who are hiring talent”. Hmmm. Huge RED FLAG pops into my mind. I then say well I feel it would be best to show my portfolio to the company in person as I have other interviews I need to attend. He suddenly gets real strange. His eyes get big, face gets red (Freddie Cruger style) and he says, “that’s not the way we do things around here, our clients are exclusive and they would rather not deal with designers face to face in the initial stages”. So I say, well if you happen to come across clients that will deal with a designer face to face then give me a call.
I then pack up my work and head for the door. He then tries to stop me with one last attempt to leave my work. I give a simple shake of my head and leave. I learned months later form a friend who’s been doing design for years that this guy is known for suckering vulnerable students coming out of design schools into leaving their portfolios with him only to sell their ideas to major companies. He gets paid for other peoples fresh ideas.
It’s my party…