Spec work: for looser managers and employees. | Hacker News Reader

Spec work: for looser managers and employees.

stevoyoung.com

14 pointsstevoyoung25 comments

This ignores a lot of the details of the real world:

> Because you should have enough public examples of your work avalaible for your potential employer to evaluate. If you don’t, for whatever reason, then take yourself a little more seriously and get some public stuff out there.

Many people don't have this. And why would they: it's hard to evaluate a candidate via bits of random code and half finished projects which took their fancy, that they worked on on their own.

> Employers … you ask for spec work when you are incapable of evaluating a candidate based on interviews and existing work.

That's right. It's fucking impossible to evaluate someone based on an interview (there have been hundreds of posts to HN on this topic in the last few years). Existing work is hit-and-miss.

I personally feel that spec work is the only way to seriously evaluate people, with the caveat that _we pay for it_. If you're serious about interviewing this person, paying their day rate for a day of their time is a reasonable way to ask people to do this.

>"Many people don't have this. And why would they: it's hard to evaluate a candidate via bits of random code and half finished projects which took their fancy, that they worked on on their own."

I do agree with everything here except "why would they". I have tons of old, unfinished, half baked code /designs lying around. I wouldn't show any of it to a future employer. What I would show them is something that I took real time and effort to do. Often time that's something for my self, an open source contribution or refactoring a side project to make it "usable". This takes a lot of time. But if you ever want to be in the position of choosing who you work for this is needed. That's all that I'm suggesting. The alternative is 6+ hours of spec work for every job you want to get. Which is mostly not reusable because it's company specific.

>"That's right. It's fucking impossible to evaluate someone based on an interview (there have been hundreds of posts to HN on this topic in the last few years). Existing work is hit-and-miss."

I mostly agree. I think multiple interviews with multiple people and talking through problems and design/development problems can greatly reduce the gap of it being hit-and-miss. I'm also not suggesting this is cheap to do (for both employee and employer). But hiring someone or starting a new job should require a lot of investment on both sides.

> " ...with the caveat that _we pay for it_. If you're serious about interviewing this person, paying their day rate for a day of their time is a reasonable way to ask people to do this."

I wish more folks did this. You obviously take hiring seriously. I bet you have many sold folks at your place.

> You obviously take hiring seriously. I bet you have many sold folks at your place.

Very much. It's easy to get burned. We're young so we just have one employee, but we paid him 8 hours work to do a small project, because we wanted to see what he could do in 8 hours. It was great so we hired him.

> Often time that's something for my self, an open source contribution or refactoring a side project to make it "usable".

I don't find this to be terribly valuable, personally. Its great to see that you can pick up a strange project and quickly make a valuable contribution, but it says very little about whether you're a good coder.

> if you ever want to be in the position of choosing who you work for this is needed

I disagree. To do this you need to be a great coder/designer, and there are many ways to demonstrate this. Lots of open source is a good way, but a small amount of open source, or just a couple of side projects you worked alone on, isn't a great way, IMO.

Can you imagine asking a lawyer or doctor to do spec work before “hiring” them?

Yes, for lawyers; I can imagine doing that because it is an absolutely routine practice. If you are at all likely to be a serious client, lawyers will give you hours and hours for free. Why wouldn't they? No invoice denominated in single-digit hours is going to move the dials for them anyways.

a point of clarification...you (aka employer) do not decide if a lawyer (aka employee) gives you "spec" work. He does. And he only does it if he thinks it will give him a sweet payout or he is guaranteed the $ (win the case). This works well for him because those "sweet payouts" are often in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Comparing spec work for designers and developers to a lawyer is, well, not exactly reasonable.

It's more accurate to compare large ad agencies to the lawyer analogy. Which then, makes complete sense.

Back to my analogy. You will never go into a lawyers office and demand he "write a case study and strategy document" for how he plans on dealing with your crazy neighbors because they killed your dog. He will laugh you out of his office, while sending you a bill for wasting his time. But...you can walk in and ask his opinion, get a feeling for his ethics and ask for references. This is akin to the interview for the designer or developer. I see nothing wrong there, on either side.

I really don't follow this at all. Is your point that designers should avoid doing spec work for clients that are unlikely to be lucrative? Ok. How about a step further, and recommend avoiding doing all work for clients who aren't lucrative? Life is short.

As someone who has done pretty significant work with lawyers, especially lately: I think you're drastically underestimating how much lawyers will do up front for free.

My original point is that if managers took recruiting more seriously and spent more time and money on finding the correct person they wouldn't need to ask for spec work.

My point in this rabbit hole is that doing "free aka spec" work for a lawyer vs designer/developer is completely different. With a lawyer you are talking about possible payouts that can equal to months, or even years of salary. For designers/developers the typical payout for spec work (for freelancers) are more like weeks.

Granted, this whole discussion around lawyers doing spec work vs designers/devs doing it is a bit convoluted. I shouldn't have used lawyer in the example, though I still don't think someone goes into a lawyers office and says "in order to work with me you must complete the following tasks". That's what happens to designers and developers, which I think it BS.

Doctors and lawyers do not need spec work because of professional licenses/certifications. The ABA asked your lawyer for spec work when she took the bar.

Dictionaries: not for loser bloggers

Glad someone else noticed that. Those programmers sure are loose, must be the yoga.

First off, I agree, my spelling sucks. Oh well, let's move on. Oh and I'm a looser, I'm good with that too. +1 for you, Mr. Cool.

Secondly, saying the ABA ask for "spec work" is like saying college ask for "spec work". You have to do it to be in the profession. It's an exam, it's mandatory to be in the field. Spec work for developers / designers is not.

>"Doctors and lawyers do not need spec work because of professional licenses/certifications."

That's my point exactly, thanks for agreeing with me. Designers and developers lack any real formal "licenses/certifications". Their public work should take the place of "licenses and certifications". That's why you should hire them - not because they got suckered into doing 6 hours of spec work for you.

Lawyers frequently work on a purely speculative basis. Either via free consultations or contingent fees (paid only on a win). It works pretty well for them. There is even a marketplace for crowdsourcing legal opinions from qualified lawyers (http://www.lawpivot.com).

Offering low-risk initial engagements mean they create a whole new market segment made up of people who previously wouldn't have considered paying a lawyer. Provided this market segment then goes on to actually generate paying work, this works great. This is the case with many industries.

Hand picking clients to do spec work that can result in tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars isn't a bad idea (aka lawyers). Someone who can take on spec work with the possibility of making two years salary vs someone taking on spec work to make a few weeks worth of salary is completely different. Taking on spec work makes sense if you need the money (I've been there) or you are vying for a very large contract (ad agencies, lawyers etc)...or I guess, if you are positive you can win the work/contract.

I never said spec work doesn't work. I'm simply suggesting that with more care, attention and commitment (especially to spend $) from folks hiring it isn't needed as much ask people think it is.

...and let's be honest here. Folks coming to your site looking for spec work do not fall into the "committed to spend $ on finding the correct person" category. I'm not suggesting that's a bad thing. As one of my replies above state, I think there is room for 99designs, on both sides of the table.

Thanks for taking the time to reply, btw.

What he is calling "spec work" would be better described as a "challenge project". I think these provide a lot of insight that you wouldn't have the opportunity to receive via the standard portfolio/github and interview process. If you give a job candidate a small project (3-5 hours tops), you're able to see how they solve problems and most importantly, how they interact with your team.

I've asked "A player" candidates to perform challenges, and I have happily performed them myself to get a job. And as a candidate, there have been a couple of time where I've realized via the challenge process, that I wouldn't want to work with a particular group.

It's a smart use of time by both parties to quickly determine if the candidate is indeed a good fit for the position.

Spec work, as in completing a project to receive consulting work, is an entirely different debate.

I feel that companies should pay people to complete these "challenge projects". Once I interviewed with 3 different companies that asked for a challenge project, which were expected to take 2 days in one case, a week in another case. If you're paying, I'll do it happily.

I feel your pain. Two days to a week is "free work", not a challenge project. I too would respectfully decline if I wasn't getting paid.

I agree, "challenge projects" is closer to what I am talking about.

To be clear, I not debating that it isn't useful for the employer. If the employee gets to interact with the team (which I think is rare) it could be useful for the employees too. I'm just suggesting that it's not necessary and the upside leans heavily on the employers side.

Why can't you bring in an existing design / engineering problem into the interview and discuss it. This would give you more than enough insight into someone's technical chops and problem solving ability. I've done it when interviewing people and it's worked wonders. These types of conversations also gives you much more info on a candidate.

Why do others have to tell designers what they should and shouldn't do? They are smart enough to make their own decisions. I think it all depends on the project, the company, brand, and opportunity. Crowdsourcing and a traditional design process can still coexist.

I wrote a short blog post on this here: http://blog.fantastic.me/2012/08/is-sepc-work-evil.html

We're hiring - no spec work, and if we did have spec work, we'd pay you.

http://www.globalgiving.org/aboutus/jobs/software-engineer-f...

The designer revolt against 'spec work' is a byproduct of 99designs and crowdSPRING doing an excellent job of disrupting the way people hire designers. They want things the way they were: high prices and no competition once you find clients who like your work. However that isn't the best system for anybody other than them, which is why people are embracing a better way to do it.

Adapt or die, designers. The market is now a meritocracy. And that's the way it should be.

Now if only somebody would do this with programmers...

we have that, it's called elance.

Actually, and this in not meant in the dickish way it's going to come across, the designers / developers who do work for $75+ an hour do not lose sleep over 99designs. I would never participate in 99designs but I recommend it to people all the time.

"Hey I need a logo/website, can you help or recommend someone?" "Sure, what's your budget?"

"$350, but I can spend $450 if I reaaaaaaaalllllly need too"

"Oh, that's great. I'm too busy to take any work on but you might have some success with a site called 99designs.com...(explain how it works).."

"...REALLY? that's how it works, that's fantastic. thanks for the recommendation"

Just because somebody responds with a budget that is worth your time does not mean they also should not use 99designs.

The difference between the best designers there and the designers who need to be paid thousands just to open photoshop is not talent or experience - it's just their sense of entitlement.

Sure, they could still use 99designs. But if they are in my target market why would I refer them to a competitor? That doesn't make sense to me...

I agree, some folks have a terrible amount of talent and don't know their value. I see it all the time. But, I wouldn't make a blanket statement and say "all designers are equal", which is essential what you are saying.

You can call it entitlement if you would like. I call it I've worked my ass off for many years and now have the luxury of only accepting gigs that I want. This isn't about being a dick, it's about doing what's best for me and my family.

"I wouldn't make a blanket statement and say "all designers are equal", which is essential what you are saying."

I said the best on 99designs and guys who want $5k to do a logo are equal. Not every designer is equal.

"You can call it entitlement if you would like. I call it I've worked my ass off for many years and now have the luxury of only accepting gigs that I want."

This is what overpaid people in dying industries always say and think. The market doesn't care how hard you worked or what you think you deserve. Of course, you know this, which is why you made this post and why you want people to think designers doing spec work are 'one step above useless'.

I'm not sure how you've manage to make all of those conclusions base on my post. But anyhow, I'll address them since you took the time to reply.

>"This is what overpaid people in dying industries always say and think."

I would beg to differ. The UX design and developer market is no where near dead. I'm not sure where you've been, but the market is in fact booming. I don't consider myself over paid. In fact, I know many folks that are paid more than I am.

>"The market doesn't care how hard you worked or what you think you deserve."

You are correct, they don't care about what I think I am worth. Well, except when pay me for a gig.

>"Of course, you know this, which is why you made this post and why you want people to think designers doing spec work are 'one step above useless'."

Actually, per the first paragraph of my post, I wrote it because a friend was recently being courted by a very large tech company (not by his doing) and then they sprung a 5+ hour "spec" work assignment on him.

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