Anyone have experience with this? Is it becoming more common or just new to me?

Two years ago I was hard in my job search. A company asked me to put together a deck with prospected leads for their product. I worked my ass off, found legitimate leads. Submitted the deck, presented and all went well. I never got the job anyway, they delayed the hiring for 90 days. It was a startup. They are doing very shitty right now, so bullet dodged I guess.

After that I was doubting I would ever do "free work" for a potential job again. 

A few months after that it came up again. Also a startup. What they were asking was insane. They wanted me to act like I was an employee, give me a company email address, prospect leads, setup calls, then they would monitor the fucking calls. I didn't even entertain that, told them to get fucked. 

Now here we are again. They are asking me to put together a pitch deck that includes a mockup for a web ad banner. The pitch has to use data from a survey in a 500 line Excel file. Raw data only, little guidance. Could I do this? Yes, but it will take a lot of time and research, it's a completely different industry that I'm in now, and I'm not very familiar. The due date is next Thursday, then we setup a time to present it in person and have the first interview.

Here's the kicker, they haven't even confirmed the salary range of the position. I'm leaning towards telling them to get fucked too. 

Thots?

Yeah, I wouldn’t do any of that. I’d be concerned they just want to use your ideas or benefit from your sales while they aren’t liable to pay you for either. Nope nope nope. 

That's what I immediately thought after sent the first assignment file AFTER I presented it. I was naive. 

posted by Automatik

That's what I immediately thought after sent the first assignment file AFTER I presented it. I was naive. 

 

Yeah, agree with S&L

Much lesser form but in college the head basketball coach taught a few classes. One was actually based on coaching high school sports (mind you I teach jim) one part of this class he went on and on about knowing the history of the school you are at and the project with it was to research the history of basketball for University of Rio Grande (ha ha I know)....anyways I dug into it and enjoyed it and made an in depth folder full of everything from 1920 to the current (1995 then)....I was very proud of the work I did.

Fucker never returned it and returned the other 12 kids in the class. Kept mine for himself. Karma got him as he illegally paid court costs on former Bobby Knight headbuttee Sheron Wilkerson and was canned.

Your situation made me go to that. Best of luck to you.

Not really. A company i was going to interview with wanted me to make. “45min to an hour” PowerPoint presentation about myself to present at the interview. I have like 5 minutes to talk about myself. I can probably stretch it to 10. I said no thanks. 

Yup, what S&L said.  There are quite a few stories out there of companies purposely doing this just to steal ideas.  Someone actually on my linked in feed  posted one of those stories a few weeks ago. I refuse to give the "goods," until I am hired.  

Recently I have been applying to other jobs just as a feeler.  One of the jobs recently got back to me with this email:

"If you are still interested and would like to be considered further for this position, please provide the following information / documentation:

1.       Current and previous supervisors name / telephone number / e-mail address.  A representative will contact your supervisor.

2.       Last two (2) performances appraisals. The latest appraisal should not be older than 12 months.

3.       Provide three (3) Samples documents demonstrating your writing skills and (redacted) knowledge commensurate with the position you are applying for.  This may include any type (redacted) documentation (or other samples of outside correspondence) prepared by you: (For example,  redacted).

4.      If advancing, Interviews will be scheduled starting the week of (redacted) times will be provided after documents are received"

I pretty much responded in a professional manner and told them they could kindly fuck off.  They weren't getting any of that from me unless I completed an interview and told me they were going to hire me.  Even then I would have waited until I was working to share any of my work. It turns out they hired nobody for that position and it validated my belief, that they were just trying to "steal" templates. 

Wow, you're fucking performance appraisals and THREE writing examples? Insane.

I could understand a basic test for an evaluation. Even a simple, mocked up pitch deck just to show you're capable. But digging into the raw data to formulate the pitch was the red flag for me. 

I send them the kindly fuck off email an hour ago. Salary was 8k less than what I'm currently getting now anyway. Cyaaa!

Just shows you how fucked NYC's job market is. I've heard so many stories of significant lowballing. Not what you want to get paid? We'll find someone who will take it.

A skills test is not unusual, and hasn't been for some time.  But we're talking like 30-60 minutes.  Anything more than that and my response is "I'd be happy to do that if you hire me".  I can't think of a single good reason to ask someone to mock-up a sales campaign.

Politely tell them "GFY".  It's a company you probably don't want to work for.  If they hire you anyway, then fine go pay the bills.  

posted by Automatik

 

Just shows you how fucked NYC's job market is. I've heard so many stories of significant lowballing. Not what you want to get paid? We'll find someone who will take it.

that is the job market everywhere

TIL: The job market is the same across the entire United States of America. 

Ty!

posted by Automatik

Anyone have experience with this? Is it becoming more common or just new to me?

Two years ago I was hard in my job search. A company asked me to put together a deck with prospected leads for their product. I worked my ass off, found legitimate leads. Submitted the deck, presented and all went well. I never got the job anyway, they delayed the hiring for 90 days. It was a startup. They are doing very shitty right now, so bullet dodged I guess.

After that I was doubting I would ever do "free work" for a potential job again. 

A few months after that it came up again. Also a startup. What they were asking was insane. They wanted me to act like I was an employee, give me a company email address, prospect leads, setup calls, then they would monitor the fucking calls. I didn't even entertain that, told them to get fucked. 

Now here we are again. They are asking me to put together a pitch deck that includes a mockup for a web ad banner. The pitch has to use data from a survey in a 500 line Excel file. Raw data only, little guidance. Could I do this? Yes, but it will take a lot of time and research, it's a completely different industry that I'm in now, and I'm not very familiar. The due date is next Thursday, then we setup a time to present it in person and have the first interview.

Here's the kicker, they haven't even confirmed the salary range of the position. I'm leaning towards telling them to get fucked too. 

 

Thots?

That is ridiculous; move on. 

posted by Automatik

After that I was doubting I would ever do "free work" for a potential job again. 

 

Well.....it happened again. I interviewed in early July for a global food company. It went well, then they asked me do a case study, then a presentation. It's the exact industry I work in, and I the case study was something I knew I could handle.

It was rather extensive. I'd guess I put around 30 hours into it, but I fucking nailed it. 

Then the company went silent, I went on vacation and I pretty much wrote them off. Then the recruiter contacted me again to setup a video conference with the HQ that's located abroad. Then they went silent again, kept following up then nothing.

THEN the recruiter calls me last Friday and said they want to move directly to onboarding, offer coming soon. Discussed the terms early this week, offer arrived yesterday. Signed this morning, TWO WEEKS NOTICE BOMBSHELL DROPPING TOMORROW. 

I'm very stoked. My current company has been great experience, but overall the place is unethical and flat out garbage. It's also in the Bronx, new one in Financial District.

Moral of the story: sometimes shit just works out.

Congrats, glad everything worked out for you.

Thats awesome man! Congrats on the new job. 

That's awesome, glad it worked out. 30 hours for the project sounds insane, but worked out in your favor.

Most of it was traveling to and from stores in the city and observing demographics and trends. It was interesting, but I also felt like weirdo.

I just had a 6 hour interview with a 40 min presentation on Monday. The presentation was pitching why the company I was interviewing with would be a great company for another business to partner with (disrupting a traditionally non digital business).  It was tough to pull together as the company didn't provide data and there isn't data to be had in the field for say.

Got an email today saying "I'd like to schedule time for feedback". lol what? Is that a rejection? Bizarre.

Interesting. It will either be positive or a huge waste of time.

I'm on day 3 of the new gig. Getting bombarded with information. I feel like I'm back in college. So far so good though. Only complaint is the laptop they provided, it's a heavy beast.

posted by Commander of Awesome

an email today saying "I'd like to schedule time for feedback". lol what? Is that a rejection? Bizarre.

Most companies don't even bother if they are rejecting you.

Take it as a positive.  They either have some questions on your assumptions and thought process, or want you to address why one or two people might not think you're a fit.

In other words, you've basically advanced to the next round of interviews, or possibly even negotiating the offer.  I'd not expect additional interviews after a 6-hr ordeal, so this may be more about selling you and getting your sense of fit after meeting everyone.

posted by Automatik

Interesting. It will either be positive or a huge waste of time.

 

I'm on day 3 of the new gig. Getting bombarded with information. I feel like I'm back in college. So far so good though. Only complaint is the laptop they provided, it's a heavy beast.

Good luck with it.

posted by Automatik

Interesting. It will either be positive or a huge waste of time.

 

I'm on day 3 of the new gig. Getting bombarded with information. I feel like I'm back in college. So far so good though. Only complaint is the laptop they provided, it's a heavy beast.

Turns out it was a rejection and they wanted to give me reasons to why. Essentially said I didn't have enough Sales exp. Which is true, I have no sales experience, nor do I have any interest in sales. I thought it was more of an internal facing ops role and it was not. All well, thems the breaks.

Sucks, I know that feel.

Wouldn't it be nice if they were just up fucking front in the first place?

I had a similar situation. Blew off work for an interview, didn't have key experience they were looking for, didn't have a chance in hell. I flipped out on the recruiter over the phone.

posted by Commander of Awesome

Turns out it was a rejection and they wanted to give me reasons to why. Essentially said I didn't have enough Sales exp. Which is true, I have no sales experience, nor do I have any interest in sales. I thought it was more of an internal facing ops role and it was not. All well, thems the breaks.

Sorry to hear.  Sounds like a miscommunication that wasted everyone's time.

posted by gut

Sorry to hear.  Sounds like a miscommunication that wasted everyone's time.

I think it was more of they were figuring shit out as they went along. Thought they were looking for "X", as they talked to more candidates it became more clear they needed "Y" sort of thing. I should have known as the project they had me do ws outside of my general skillset, should have started the conversation then. Live and learn

I've had to do this once, but it wasn't for anything usable.  They wanted to know if I had the necessary skills working with email-based HTML, so they gave me a bit of homework.  However, it was an old promo they'd run in the past, so I wasn't creating anything new that they could use today.

If anyone asks for work on current projects for free, the answer is no.  I've only had to say it once, and the way I said it was along the lines of, "That's certainly something I'd be happy to do after joining the team and starting work."  I work for cash, bitches.

As far as leads, though, I usually keep those pretty close to the vest even after I do join an employer.  I've acquired them over 10 years.  I'm not going to let an employer scrape them and/or damage my reputation with them.

Give them your mixtape.