[Brain]

Was looking over at CGTalk's employment forum, and saw in this thred regarding BlackBox Games having tests for their various position applications. Someone argued that tests are pointless and should get paid for doing them, and I disagreed, saying they're a good idea as the company gets your most recent work, most likely in the time and style format you'd be working in.

Since my post though, most people have been negative towards such tests, and I'm just curious to find out the general concensus around here.

[HawkOne]

Although I know there are two sides to every story, I for one thinks that it is mostly a good strategy to test prospective employees.

Where I stay now, in Malaysia, there is a disturbing number of (con)artist who come to interviews with someone elses work, some of which is so famous that you gotta wonder about the mental status of some of these people.

A few years ago I was in charge of interviewing people for 2 posts, multimedia designer and 3D modeller/animator. I interviewed 18 people, and the statistics were pretty grim, 5 of them had mixed in work from famous artists into their own showpieces , probably hoping that nobody would notice. Another 3 were probably using the same methods, but not choosing so easily detectable stolen work, they were all hired, but they "flunked out after just a few days when it became clear that they were pretty clueless about what they were supposed to do. 6 others had no recent work, and their entire portfolio consisted of a blurb of wrinkled papers produced in college(??) many years old. The next 2 applicants came from TV stations Graphics departments, were used to working on Silicon Graphics machines using Alias|Wavefront software costing more than my previous employers combined assets, were considered overqualified by my boss (i.e. overpriced).

1 applicant would only accept working on Mac machines, and although she would have qualified, she was not interested in working on Windows/Linux machines. 1 Multimedia Designer with some recent good work from his studies in Australia was hired. However, no further suitable applicants were found, the company became undermanned, and the whole operation went down the drain, along with 2 months of my pay. Ouch

Before all this, the weasel of a boss suggested that we use tests in order to hire people. All good until he told me what the "tests" would be, and how we would use them ... Candidates would basically be asked to come up with ideas and designs for work that we were currently engaged in, and whether they were suitable or not, the company would still have some fresh ideas.
I did a futile attempt trying to explain why this was unethical, but to no avail, so I came up with another reason why it was unfeasible to do or something of that nature, and it was somehow accepted.

I think tests are good in principle, and indeed might even be an excellent way to quickly determine whether an applicant is suitable or not if an interview doesn't give all the required info for a decision, but I think they should be performed "in house" and with some sort of compensation after an initial interview, there is something wrong with producing work for free, and possibly stealing ideas/concepts from people who may not even be hired. Hopefully though those with good stuff will be hired, they should be anyway. But hiring might not be the only objective from some sneaky managers ...

Maybe if there were some sort of general tests, from impartial sources or something like that, it would be a more useful method of separating out the wheat from the chaff.

I think it could be a good additional tool if used with care. Possibly best if there is a geographical reason why someone cannot show up in person ... Like when hiring someone from Europe to work in the USA or something like that ... but project sourcefiles should be unneccesary though ..

That was a bit more than 2 Cents, but ... I'm a generous person ... heheh ...

[ June 10, 2002: Message edited by: HawkOne ]

[Lunatique]

I've done tests for companies in the past, and I hated doing it. But, you also learn from the experience. I suspected the company took what I produced and used it, without hiring me, and that does happen, as HawkOne
mentioned.

Now, I don't bother doing them, especially after having several well-known games under my belt. I think tests are good for inexperienced artists looking for work, or unproven artists. For artists that's been in the biz, their portfolio should speak for itself, especially if it contained works from previous jobs.

Now when a company asks me to do a test, I just tell them I'm not interested.

[Vhy]

This is a trend? I hope so...

If they don't elimate applicants this way, they're more likely to require experience.

But I would be more inclined to complete an art test if the assignment appears to be unrelated to any specific project.