Beautifully decorated office

Position interviewed for: Visual Design Manager

After seeing all kinds of cases of companies exploiting applicants’ work shared by people before me, I continued to believe that people are inherently good and thought, “It probably won’t be that unlucky for me, right???” So I went for the interview. The interviewer was the Marketing Manager. Here are a few points for everyone’s reference.

1. The interviewing manager seemed very nice, and the interview lasted three hours. Here is the problem: what kind of manager needs three hours just to explain the duties of the position? During the interview, it became apparent that the Marketing Manager was simply throwing design and management problems he was currently unable to handle at the interviewee, hoping that someone among the applicants could help him deal with them.

2. I was interviewing for a design manager position, but only after the interview did they tell me they wanted me to create a DM to evaluate my abilities and design style. I responded at the time that I thought this kind of assignment might be acceptable for a specialist position, but would it be appropriate to ask someone interviewing for a design manager position to create a DM? They then gave me a DM, so I replied that I would optimize it based on the content of that DM.

3. Next, after the other party provided the logo, product photos, and other materials, I mentioned in my first email that I could type the copy myself, but asked whether they could provide me with any other materials. They provided a contextual image, and nothing else. After I replied with my proposal, I received a response the next day saying that they had realized they had not given me the copy and wanted me to create another design based on their copy. After reading the text, my thought was that the entire piece needed to be redone—the headline, key message, and so on were completely different from the original.

4. Finally, I replied that I felt I had already presented my design concept and ideas in the previous email, so I would not create a second design based on the content provided by their company. That was when the matter fell through.

Taking all of the above into account, along with the many accounts shared by those who came before me, it is clear that this company habitually asks applicants to submit assignments after interviews. Why do you think interviewees should provide your company with free creative work and ideas? Regardless of whether the position is senior or junior, they use the same approach. This kind of exploitation of applicants’ work is truly disgraceful.

For anyone considering interviewing at this company, please think twice.