A good phone interview gone bad; or, how to spot a coal in the rough

[actionjbone]

Background for this story: I'm on the job hunt right now, after having been downsized a couple of weeks ago.

I'm posting this for the benefit of the younger designers who haven't yet had much real-world job-hunting experience, and as a general reminder to know what you're worth and to keep watch for companies who don't:

Comments

[hycaliber]

Thanks for posting... good story to learn from. :)

[steveshot]

Thanks for posting this story!

This is true. Don't work half a day for free for a Senior position or any position!

[subsonique]

I work at a multinational software company with a strangely-small in-house graphics/marketing department. We're able to get by as a small team because we have corporate templates and standards that enable us to pump out high-volumes of quality work, quickly (of course, we have the one off pieces that we spend more time on as well).

When we were short-staffed, we had trouble getting people to come work with us and had positions open for a long time because the job descriptions were written by HR and didn't reflect what we did as a creative team. Nobody applied. As soon as that was fixed, we were flooded ... and we don't have a test in place, but I think it would have helped to have one when we went through our hiring phase because what A. was talking about DOES happen

[jerricurrl]

To partially agree with you:

I think there is a difference between a skills test and spec work ("well why don't you do a couple of small projects for us first and then if we like you we'll hire you"). www.no-spec.com has been cited in this community several times, and there are good arguments made there.

IME, a skills test is not that uncommon for a working environment that is fast paced and is heavy on the production end of things. My first job was like this, and I had to take a test that included redrawing a simple logo, placing type on a curve, resizing a photo to a certain set of specifications, and a few other (looking back on it, very simple) tasks.

That said, four hours seems like a *really* long time for a skills test.

[jerricurrl]

OP: "I'm posting this for the benefit of the younger designers who haven't yet had much real-world job-hunting experience..."

The OP is looking for a senior design job, but addressing the post to younger people as a warning. Maybe it should be more of a yellow flag than a red one.

[aubuchon]

I don't know - maybe I'm not seasoned enough as a designer - but a 4 hour test for a full-time job seems trivial in the broad spectrum of things.

I don't think I'd generalize about it either, I mean - if it seems like a place you'd want to work I wouldn't throw it all away because of a silly test; some people just have different methods.

I can see why employers give tests, and I can see why designers hate them - but I don't think strict judgment should apply to every situation.

[xochitl]

When I was getting interviewed for my current job, I had a 15 minute "test" and was hired the next day. Four hours??? Jeebuz.

I did have one company ask me to redesign their entire media kit as a "test" to see if they wanted to hire me, and I was like "um, hell to the no".