Job Interview Test Project
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- jerseyred
So I had an interview for a company and they wanted me to do a sample email project. I've been designing 10 emails a week for the last 3 years for a variety of companies.
Their brief has 4 products, a little product copy, and no direction. The brief states "be creative" but don't use any stock photography and you don't have to use the images of the product.
I submitted the email comp and decided to use the product shots - they responded that they loved the email, thought it was nice and clean, but they want to see another comp and this time "be creative and go all out."
red flag or just make the email again?
- d_rek0
eh. Seriously?
Sounds way fishy. Tell them any further creative you'll do will cost them.
- jobhall0
unless you have a good feeling about them, i'd say it is a red flag. they should be able to judge your skills by your previous work, resume and an interview.
- fyoucher10
Don't you have a portfolio? Can't they just look at that? Why would you need to do a test project...
- MSTRPLN0
"..... so the challenge after the interview was to re-design their company website, and after 80hrs of work they said that they'll try out the website for several months and email me back to let me know if I got the job!"
- doctor, please perform a heart transplant so I can see how good u r then I'll decide!
jerseyred
- doctor, please perform a heart transplant so I can see how good u r then I'll decide!
- jerseyred0
Thanks all - I showed them a ton of work, hundreds of emails, and they said in the interview "we've had a lot of candidates with great portfolios but they just didn't nail the test project." I believe this small company is a tad "design by committee" and they just don't know what they want. I don't believe it's malicious but I can say that it's an indication of how much of a pain in the ass it would be working there.
but it was a 6 figure salary, I told the recruiter (who told me that 90% of her recruits do test projects) that I'm not interested.
- d_rek0
Test projects .... c'mon...
Are you in high school? Sure, I can understand gauging an applicants basic aptitude but surely a portfolio demonstrating your skill and ability should be more than enough qualification.To me it sounds like they're trying to squeeze free creative out of you - and shame on your fucking recruiter for administering these goddamn test projects.
It's a fucking insult.
- jerseyred0
email from recruiter
"They received your project, and unfortunately they did not think it was creative enough.. the main thing they are looking for is someone super creative who can bring something different to the table, but still coincide with their aesthetic... they aren't looking for someone to do the same exact thing they are already doing. However, because they really loved meeting with you yesterday they have decided to give you a second chance to do the project!! This is not typical so I would take it as a compliment, and also really try to wow them for the 2nd time around!
I read over the assignment that they gave to you and can see how it would be a little bit difficult to make something crazy creative, as their guidelines didn't seem to give you too much room for creativity. Nevertheless, that is what they are asking for.. so definitely try to think outside of the box for this. Another piece of advice I'd give you is to spend a little bit more time on the project your second time around, as I think they may have been a little surprised at how fast you sent it over (which I know is a positive in that it shows how quickly you can work, but I think it might seem as if because you did not spend more time on it, it did not turn out as great as it could have!)
I was up until 4 am last night b/c I had 2 other freelance projects due and I spent a....you know what, fuck it...I'm boring myself with this shit - thanks all for your comments, effen people!
- sounds fishy as shit. "We want higher quality, better thought out free work!" bet they use the 'recruits' work all the timebaseline_shift
- Douglas0
don't most companies just hire you stating that the first couple months are freelance to cover their ass before all the staff benefits and paperwork kick in?
- cannonball19780
its sounds like you need to just be a little more super creative.
- ukit0
They offered you a 6 figure job to design HTML e-mails?
- That alone is fishy shitukit
- lol - not just emails but overall webdesigner for an ecommerce company based in NYC. Heavy email creation (promo, transactional, dynamic triggered segments, etc.)jerseyred
- transactional, dynamic triggered campaigns) with an email list of 5 million and $150k per email - yeahjerseyred
- "transactional, dynamic triggered campaigns" So basically spam e-mails with buttons to click on?;)ukit
- no - segmented based on customer data, women get x, women who spend this get y - ecommerce email campaigns are involvedjerseyred
- can get involvedjerseyred
- gotcha, I was just joking around;)ukit
- boobs0
I think you should show them your super creativity by shitting right in their fridge!
Employers out there seem to think they can do anything to job applicants: test their IQ, test their references, test their urine, have them waste a million hours on interviews, insult them.
Fuck, it's just not that hard to find your own fucking work, and be the boss yourself!
- boobs0
And recruiters know absolutely nothing about the business, SO THEY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT COCKS THEY ARE!
Most recruiters are as clever as ping pong balls...
- ukit0
I'm sure everyone will tell you not to, but when it comes down to it of course you will redo the e-mail.
Considering how little effort it takes and the potential opportunity, etc.
Sorry to spoil the insurrection
- chuparosa0
Hmmm...... if it was a company you really wanted to work for, and turnaround on the test was not that important, you might have considered giving it another go. Six figure salary sounds quite nice.
- k0na_an0k0
design another email that is super creative and put a giant © ghosted over the top of it.
if you're giving them jpgs with lorem ipsum copy i'm not sure it's usable anyways so i don't think they're looking for full work, but if they gave you a word doc with real copy and want the psd and jpg then f that right in the a.
- Leigh0
This company needs to be named and shamed!
- vaxorcist0
there's no such thing as "being more creative" without at least some direction... being randomly creative creates cool but useless stuff... you might say something like "I've worked in agencies where there was a creative brief, and if there wasn't, it was my job to write one using a business objective, a communications directive, and a target audience" So, I'd be interested in doing annother design if you can clealy communicate those things, and/or give me a creative brief, that way my work will be creatively targeted, not just randomly creative.
How they respond to a note like this will tell you if they're worth working for but feel burned by previous people who submitted work they only did part of, or if the company is just flaky or worse....
- The brief you indicate above doesn't sound much like a brief I'm used to seeing... or was it longer?
vaxorcist
- The brief you indicate above doesn't sound much like a brief I'm used to seeing... or was it longer?
