Interview / Spec situation - How would you handle this?

[silverhill]

Here's the background of my situation: I have been unemployed since September (through no fault of my own). I have applied for a bunch of jobs and have had several good interviews ... but no job offers

Comments

[yo_sarrian]

I think the ownership might depend on the task you're given. If they give you a bunch of images and say "make something cool out of this" then they have the right to say you can't use those images or the design you create using them for other work.

What I would definitely do to avoid spec work is get assurances in writing that any test you perform for them is not usable by the company unless they hire you.

Having a test is not all that unusual (although personally I've never done it), but nor is shops trying to get people to work for them for free.

Good luck with the job situation!

[monack]

The company that I recently left gave out assignments to the final candidates as a way to assess that they actually knew the programs and work that they claimed to know in the interview. It worked out well for them - they were able to weed out candidates pretty quickly who obviously had had someone else do their portfolio work for them. ;)

I would check with the company and just make sure that it is something that they are using to assess your skill level, and not something that they are planning on actually sending out to a client.

[zaydia]

I agree with both of the above answers.

Also - how badly do you want this job? If you want it, I'd suck it up and do the assignment.

[aubuchon]

seconded.

[puella]

I think this is pretty common for design jobs and I do not consider it spec work. It really depends on what the project is- are they having you design an entire website for a real company? Or are they having you do a smaller piece or something for a fictional company or a company that is clearly not their client? If you have a bad feeling and think they might be using this process to get free work I would not do it. This would be extremely rare though, so in most situations I see no problem with it.

[mozillafs]

"get them to agree in writing that they can't use it unless you are hired"

EXACTLY.