Spec Work BEFORE An Interview

I had a professor once. Really good designer. Art center grad from the late '80s. One day this professor is interviewing a candidate for a job at his studio. The candidate opens up his book, and the first image is a chalk rendering of a car that THE PROFESSOR designed. My professor explained “this is my work. I’m going to take this book now. Thanks”.

Could you imagine being either of the people in that scenario? I would have lost it. What’s especially strange is that this was way before websites/behance or whatever, so that means the candidate must have stolen physical copies of the work and photographed it/photocopied it. Absolutely insane.

Regarding spec work, don’t do it. Unless it’s a dream job. Charge a day rate for it if you want to. There is literally no other industry that expects free work. If you’re talking to a catering business, you pay for a tasting. If you give them your business, they incorporate the tasting fee into the final bill (someone else mentioned this technique—it’s very common in other industries). Could you imagine calling a plumber and asking them to fix your toilet…but deciding if you’ll pay them AFTER the job is over? I mean come on, man.

Sure, they’ll have a free phone call. But beyond that, you pay.

great point John… hello plumber? I’d like to use you, but I need to test you out first, so fix my sink for free… good luck with that one!

I don’t think I’ve ever been asked to do a test project, but I have without being asked. I had a Design Director level interview at Nike almost 20 years ago and even though I was already working in the industry, wanted to present some more strategic thinking and alignment with the category in which I didn’t have as much experience in (Women’s) to show where I might take the role.

The presentation was well received and I recall they actually brought in some more Design Directors to meet with me that weren’t on the agenda that were interested to see the approach.

I didn’t get the job, but like to think it didn’t hurt. I was back at Nike for a few other position interviews, so I’m thinking at least it showed good initiative and went over well.

R

It varies from each firm/company, I had had both scenarios happen to me (i.e. a task before an interview as well as another scenario where the task was given after an initial interaction). I also had the misfortune of studying at a fairly disreputable design college here, perhaps people from better schools would have an easier time with employers. After getting a job I’ve noticed first-hand how much easier it is for those that went to elite National Institutes because there is an inherent sense of trust in their skills.

It also comes down to the fact that the design industry here is still fairly new and small, getting a job in industrial design feels insanely hard. It’s a buyer’s market here and employers can get away with a lot.

Very recently I’ve seen a few different versions of this.

    1. During an interview with a design director I was told he wanted to give me a small project to get a better feeling of how I would handle the brand’s design language. Fair. Before I could even ask he said in no uncertain terms that they don’t ask people to work for free and told me to give the recruiter my hourly rate and an estimate of hours once the brief came in. Awesome. The “brief” was about a hundred words and two jpegs (I had seen some quick images of the company’s products during the interview, but that was it. Most everything else they’re doing is still under wraps.) Not great. Did the project. Got paid promptly. They passed on me without a second call. On one hand I get that style can be a “when you know you know” kind of scenario, but the fact that there wasn’t any kind of follow-up discussion or opportunity for presentation and justification of my decisions didn’t leave me too broken up about not getting an offer.
  1. Next I have had a few calls with an independent recruiter working with a brand that asked for a quick write-up of how I would handle a specific job task. This was prior to any interview with the design director themself as the recruiter is heavily screening/preparing candidates before presenting them to his client. This request seemed totally reasonable to me as it’s the kind of question I’d expect to be asked during an interview, just in written form. Explaining how you will do your job seems totally fair game and hardly qualifies as a “project” in my mind. I completed my write-up without any hesitation, had another call with the recruiter to walk him through it, and am currently waiting to hear back from the recruiter after he presents to the design director.

  2. Finally, and most recently, I had a screener call with a hiring manager where I was informed that it was their standard process to have designers be briefed on, work through, and present a small project as a part of their interview process. I told her that while I’m happy to complete a project I’m also a professional designer working full-time and that I don’t do professional design work for free. She assured me that the project is intended to be “quick” and “fun” but that the will not pay for the work. I am very skeptical. Although I don’t think there’s anything insidious behind their request, at the moment I’m inclined to decline the project as a matter of principle…which kind of sucks because it checks a lot of the boxes that have become most important to me over the past couple of years. The next step is a call with the design director, though, so I’ll at least continue along and see how it goes.

Also the, “you can either pay me or hire me and take it out of my paycheck” strategy is indeed a baller move. I might have to deploy it for my #3 scenario :wink:

Everytime I finish a movie and see that massive list of names of actors, producers and every hair stylists assistant, I wonder - what if products came with something like that. A roll call of management, RnD, purchasing, production and so on including the fork lift operator at the warehouse. Just so people would understand what human effort actually goes into a product, even if it’s made overseas.

I specifically suggested this once during a branding brainstorm for a startup I worked at. It’s definitely tough compared with a film production which happens in a little vacuum with a finite number of people over a finite amount of time, but I still think it’s a valuable idea.