Now before you get all uppity, yes, I know that in the freelance world, it’s all somewhat of a competition. Who sees a gig first, who writes the best resume, who can sell their personal brand the best, and more. The world of writing is largely a competition.
What I’m talking about is this:
Normally you see a job, you apply, you send samples, you mix it up with the potential client, and either you fit, or don’t. Either you get hired, or you don’t. Simple.
In the last month I’ve had at least four potential clients pull a classic competition. You do all the basic stuff, send the resume, send samples, and so on, only to get this email, “Wow, we just can’t decide! We got so many great applications that we think you should all WWF it out!” Ok, not in those exact words…
Still, in those words or not, the potential client sets up some sort of challenge where 50 plus applicants all do some test projects, and may the best man win.
My take:
- I think it’s a little shady.
- I think it’s a fake version of the client saying “Please give us free work.”
- I think it shows that the potential client doesn’t really know what they want (a sure sign of a troublesome client down the line).
- I think – why the hell did I send samples?
So writing is always a competition, that’s fair to say, but do you think that setting up challenges beyond the basic competition of applying is fair, a good idea, or a suck plan that wastes your time?
I agree with you. You’re already competing for the work by submitting a resume and writing samples.
If they can’t decide from what they’ve already seen, then it’s likely they either haven’t found the writer they need or they don’t really know what they want.
Writers have enough to do applying for writing work and getting on with the work they have, without having to jump through additional hoops that were never supposed to be part of the application process.
While I’m sure there are some clients who genuinely do have difficulty choosing between a handful of writers, it does smack of underhandedness, particularly when a large number of potential candidates are involved.
FWJ actually had an Idol type contest where the top two winners (out of 22 applications) landed a job. The reason I did this is because I thought it would be nice if this tight-knit community chose their bloggers. They enjoyed reading the different posts each week and voting for their favorites.
I wouldn’t do it again though. Not because we were accused of running a scam, but because people tried to game the system and one with sour grapes really effed it up for us. It was too much work and too much stress.
The good news is that we hired two excellent bloggers.
I feel really strange when I find out I’ve applied for a job that someone I am friends with has. It happens all the time, but I much prefer not knowing. The friendship is more important than the gig, in my eyes.
Recently someone mentioned a place was possibly going to cut down on writers, I saw an ad for the same place and asked if they minded if I applied, just because I’m in perpetual need of work. She didn’t seem too happy about it, so I let it go. I’d rather have her as a friend then a few extra bucks from a place that seems pretty fickle.
I prefer to know right from the start whether I’m dealing with a straightforward job application or if I’m entering a competition. Nothing wrong with a competition if I understand the terms and CHOOSE to enter.
A competition could be fun, spark my creativity, help me break into a market which I would otherwise have difficulty breaking into thru straightforward bidding.
But I don’t think that introducing a competition in the middle of a job application process is fair and I agree with the points you make about it being shady etc.
@Deb – the FWJ idol deal was set up as such from the start though. There was no please send resumes, AND THEN you said “guess what folks, it’s idol time” that was different IMO. People had all the info up front.
Ditto on the view that this type of application process needs to be stated upfront. That way, you haven’t had your time wasted if you aren’t interested in participating in that application format.
I do think that if something like this is sprung on applicants midway through the process, it’s only fair to say that all ‘practice’ submissions will be paid. After all, these contests are designed to produce work that can be used towards the client’s ends, right? So the whole thing really smacks of underhandedness if the client is engineering a contest in which a slew of usable material is just given to them- where do you think that material is going to go?
Granted, companies probably don’t want to agree upfront to pay a bunch of people for work that they aren’t guaranteed to like. But if they truly can’t decide between “so many QUALIFIED applicants,” then we should be able to assume that they’ve already narrowed the field down to truly talented writers who they feel would produce quality, relevant work. And, this would motivate them to wean the field down significantly before they start soliciting targeted samples. I really don’t think it’s fair to ask a freelancer to spend time generating a targeted (unpaid!) sample when they are one of, say, fifty competing for one spot. Those just aren’t good odds!
I’ve seen it done before where clients offer to pay for any targeted samples that are solicited from selected applicants. Only seems fair to me!
I agree-it always sets off bells of of shadiness for me too! Even some (not the FWJ idol contest) that state the conditions from the start don’t turn out to be ethical. One of my very first experiences with paid blogging involved a large magazine website with an online component that marketed this contest to hire the next blogger. They really advertised in our niche community. The rules were simply that the person with the most comments would be hired. I won by a landslide…then came the e-mails that they were extending the contest. They did and still…I won. THEN came the e-mails requesting more samples of my work-original and unpublished. I’m now embarrassed to say that I worked very hard on THREE completely new pieces for them that I had to agree I wouldn’t publish. Eventually the editor became spotty with replies to my e-mails, she wouldn’t give any answer/explanation, and never ended up hiring anyone.
I used to hate the “competition” response when I applied for a job. Then, a few months back I applied for a blogging job and the employer wrote back saying they had narrowed down 300 applicants to 14. He asked all 14 applicants to write 6 posts each for the competition (4 of them 200 words and 2 of them 400 words). He paid us 10 cents a word for the competition (2000 words total – $200). I was a little hesitant, then I thought it would be worth it for $200 for 6 blog posts.
Well, I got the job and he now pays me $50 a post for 250-450 word posts.
So, I guess it depends on the scenario. I hate the competition when they ask you to write free samples. I think I would only do that if the payoff for the job was big.
-Kori