The Hill I Will Die On
Thank you Megan Sauciuc for your endless creative support and friendship.
As Julie Andrews dances through a wondrously dreamy field declaring that the hills are very much alive with the sound of music, I, too, am on a hill — a hill that I will die on. With COVID-19 drastically impacting unemployment rates in every state, industry, and demographic group in the United States in 2020, I am exasperated by the excessive demands put on job applicants especially during this pandemic.
Almost every day I hear yet another anecdote about hiring processes requiring potential employees to jump through hoop after hoop taking up extravagant amounts of time and requiring brand spankin’ new projects (always positioned as “just a small assignment”). These hiring processes borderline on exploitation and I’m going to call it what it is — unprofessional.
Look, no journey to find a job is going to be enjoyable. I know this, hiring managers know this, HR teams know this, and I think anyone — unemployed or simply looking for a new opportunity — knows this. But no journey to find a job should take advantage of a person. Job applicants aren’t free stock photos or royalty free music. They are people. Human beings.
So why is it that video editors are getting assignments where they have four hours to cut a 60 second video with footage they’ve never seen before without a storyboard?
Why are marketers being asked to create comprehensive strategy decks featuring tactics, project plans, and completed content examples?
Why are my tech friends being asked to build out dashboards in Tableau customized to the company they are interviewing with and being told “We loved this dashboard and we will keep using it, but we went with another candidate”?
Why are paid social experts running ads for agency clients as tests? If I was a major brand throwing thousands of dollars each month into paid social and I found out job candidates, not agency employees, were actually creating lookalike segments and A/B testing with my budget as part of a hiring test, I would be looking for a new agency of record ASAP.
Why are graphic designers being asked to create templates that are “polished and finalized” and then those templates end up being used across multiple channels despite the designer not getting the job or recognition for their creative work? How come graphic designers with portfolios have to recreate the wheel to prove creative chops?
“In my industry, you have to have a robust portfolio. I can show hundreds of examples of design work I’ve done yet many companies want me to create customized work for them as a test during an interview process. When they send over very specific brand guidelines and creative briefs, this makes me question true intentions. Is this a way to get free work instead of contracting out a project? With a portfolio like mine, it doesn’t make sense that any hiring manager would need more proof of my capabilities.” — Max, a 37 year old Creative Director in Chicago.
Why are brilliant copywriters producing ad copy as a test, not getting hired, and then seeing that copy verbatim on banner ads? Jonathan, a 28 year old former coworker of mine, shared with me over Zoom recently that this specific incident has happened not once or twice since the beginning of his new job search but a total of four times with four different companies (two advertising agencies and two mid-sized brands).
Why are all these assignments unpaid? And why are companies of all sizes and industries casually using this work as if employees on the payroll created it?
“Job applicants aren’t free stock photos or royalty free music. They are people. Human beings.”
Recently, I received an assignment at 4:30pm on a Friday asking me to create a 30 | 60 | 90 day marketing plan in presentation form for both B2B and B2C opportunities showcasing an understanding of the market, new lead generation, and positioning for any and all B2B and B2C strategies with the instructions, “The more specific to [company name I will not share] you can make it, the better.” My deadline was the following Tuesday at 11am.
Luckily, as a freelancer, I could rearrange my schedule to complete this work and I recognize that in itself is a privilege many don’t have. This assignment took me five hours to complete and then I had an hour to present to a team of three. But what if I had a full-time 9-5 traditional office job? What if I had three kids? What if I had a weekend or holiday retail job? If that was the case, I couldn’t imagine getting a project this extensive late Friday afternoon with a deadline of Tuesday morning.
I fully understand and believe job candidates should thoroughly go through a vetting process, but when an interview journey runs between three to five hours over the course of a few weeks and then “just a small assignment” is required and it takes five hours — it’s just too much when zero compensation is involved.
I don’t think people expect a comparable hourly payout based on their desired salary for completing a project during the hiring process, but I do think people should expect fair compensation for sharing their skillset and time — whether they get the position or not. Any socially conscious business that says they care about their employees and believe in fair leadership that isn’t offering some type of money for extensive brain-share needs to take a good look in the corporate mirror and ask themselves if they are taking advantage of applicants or establishing toxic expectations from the get-go.
“I’ve been searching for a Director of Operations role because I am looking to get out of my particular niche and eager to climb into the next step of my career, but after being asked to complete three separate projects for three different companies and spending a total of 20 hours interviewing during the month of October for just these positions, I have been turned off from pursuing new roles. I am blessed to have a job right now, but after spending so much time that required free labor, I feel like companies are out for themselves and so out of touch with the times.” — Liliana, a 34 year old Operations Manager based in Dallas.
Asking job applicants, many desperate during the pandemic and many lacking privilege to hoop jump, to do any work for free is just like having unpaid interns on staff or telling a freelancer they will be paid in exposure. My landlord won’t accept exposure as rent. My student loans can’t be repaid with a byline or Instagram tag unless there is a direct deposit into my bank account. So, let me twirl on my hill to die on and say this loud and clear: It should be illegal for companies, large and small, public and private, to ask and expect potential employees to turn over extensive work without compensation.
Maybe I’m extreme in my thinking that these expectations are unrealistic, but here’s the thing — the pandemic has been a pressure cooker for just about everyone in one way or another, so why have companies in this economy leaned into such actions that feel questionable? I don’t have an answer but for lack of better words, it’s just too extreme. I also find it interesting how in 2020, company websites and job descriptions boast about how progressive, inclusive, and employee-centered with unparalleled work-life balance they are despite their interview process from start to finish showcasing a much different reality.
“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
No assignment should take more than an hour. Period. No assignment should be unpaid. Period. No hiring process should span more than five hours in total unless it is for a high ranking government job or a C-Suite position. Period. No portfolio and previous writing samples and case studies should be disregarded in showcasing success and the application of critical skills. Period.
Maya Angelou said it best, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” This, too, of course, applies to business. With ⅓ of life spent at work totaling close to 90,000 hours over the course of a lifetime, it is imperative to hold companies to the very standards they expect from you. As 2020 winds down, there is absolutely no better time than now to set the bar high with expectations for businesses to treat job applicants with respect and decency.
So this is the hill I die on for the future of the workforce. Want to join me?