Mike, don't have arguments on Twitter!
Yeah, I know. It's an insufficient platform for thoughtful discussion and lends itself better to sharp judgment. I learned. Thanks, Mike.
Okay, good. As long as we're clear.
The other day I had an argument on Twitter about the fact that Lab Zero posted an animation test for applicants to complete. A person argued that we should instead ask for reels and provide paid tests to people whose reels we liked. The person argued that not doing so was tantamount to demanding free work, and one should never do free work, thus it was evil for us to ask and morally wrong for applicants to participate.
This bothered me, not from the company's perspective, but from my individual perspective!
It goes completely against my ethos, even though I am all for not doing work that benefits others without benefit to yourself. So I'd like to try to explain, and this is somewhere I can do that in complete sentences. :^P
The way I have lived my life is:
Once you have proven your value to a person/group, then at your own discretion, do not do work that benefits them without compensation which benefits yourself. The act of proving your worth, however, is work that benefits you, not them, because you want something from them, thus at that point the onus is completely on you. They want something general (a good employee, whoever it is) but you want something specific (the new employee at this company should be me!).
tl;dr
Assuming your own value to someone else before proving it is at best entitled and at worst arrogant.
It shows you have very little respect for the other person/group, their judgment, or the position you are applying for. Let me give an example:
If I want to go to Harvard, I apply. And I put everything into my application, because other people will put everything into theirs. I do not expect Harvard to compensate me for the time I spent on the application, because the payoff is me attending Harvard instead of someone else getting in. It is work toward a goal; I am competing against others for something I want.
However, if I didn't respect Harvard, either because of low standing as a school or because of an inflated opinion of myself relative to others, I would put very little effort into my application. I might consider time spent on applying to be a waste, because I know I'd get in anyway. In that case, I might wonder why they weren't paying me to apply, because of how much prestige I'd bring to their school even if they don't know it yet. And if I didn't get in, which is likely in such cases because of the disproportionate effort I spent relative to other applicants, I'd be dismissive of the institution and their obviously-biased recruitment practices.
If someone else wants it more than I do, they'll do more than I will because they value the result more. Simple as that.
People are free to evaluate the worth of applying for a job: If I estimate that trying to prove my worth by completing an application would take a few days, and that getting the job would not be worth that effort, then I won't apply. That's a personal choice. But to demand that I should be compensated for whatever time I spent applying - before successfully proving that I am of benefit to the company, even if I don't get the job! - is insulting in the extreme. As is expecting the company to hire me without requiring some effort of proof on my part.
There is a different discussion to be had regarding whether a given job application asks too much of applicants. When looking for a job, after deciding the position is worthwhile, I consider between one and three hours a fair amount of time to devote to arbitrarily proving my worth in order to work someplace I desire to. Perhaps that is a larger block of time than most people would be comfortable with, but I'm used to putting hundreds or thousands of hours into things I want - making combo videos, proficiency at skills, building a game engine, etc. Heck, I spent over three hours trying to complete a pacifist run of the Indivisible prototype during our campaign. :^P Given that three-hour basic threshold, I've never been subjected to anything I felt was an undue amount of work for the position, and when I exceeded that time it was because I felt the result was worth the effort*.
Certainly, it should be a company's job to compensate potential applicants for large expenses that are not related to proving their worth. If I'm in California, and a company is in New York wants me to do an in-person interview, I rightly expect they would fly me out (and pay for a hotel if necessary). But I would not expect a company in my same city to pay for the gas I used driving to their office, nor would I expect either company to actively pay me for the time I took completing the in-person interview, which will likely include a test of my abilities. And certainly I would NOT expect compensation for completing an evaluation I can finish at home, in my pajamas, on my own schedule.
Equally certainly, it is an employer's requirement to pay employees for work. If the employer benefits from the work, the employee should be compensated. Hiring bonuses for applicants which get the job, to compensate them for previous work done after their value has been determined, are great! Unpaid internships, where companies take advantage of low-status employees in return for "providing experience" are absolutely awful and should be abolished. And the application process should never require applicants to do work that directly benefits the company conducting the application!
However, I would not expect to be paid to apply for a paid internship, even if the application process used my talents.
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* Many programming tests can take six to eight hours, and I feel that's a fair evaluation period. It is not possible to judge someone's programming ability by simply playing the result, you have to kick the tires.
Addendum:
Generalized proof of your ability/skill is not the same as domain-specific proof, either. An animation reel of short films doesn't mean you can animate for games; an animation reel for games doesn't mean you can animate for fighting games; experience animating at a different studio doesn't mean you can handle strict frame-count requirements, layering, or whatever else is required**.
"Proving yourself" takes many forms. If my friend knows I'm a writer and wants me to write something for them, that can constitute proof. If I am prolific or well-known, then my body of work can, in some instances, constitute proof. If I have animated six feature films in a certain style and a studio wants me to animate a feature film in that style, I can present my past work.
If, however, a studio wants someone to animate a feature film, then it is up to me to prove to them that I can do what they want. And if I want to animate that film, then it is up to me to do whatever it takes for them to choose me instead of another applicant.
Additionally, requiring generalized proof may filter out people who have domain-specific skills!
At least two of our current full-time artists were hired without demo reels, solely on the basis of tests. Had we required reels, neither of them would have been able to apply, despite having the necessary skills. The equivalent is true of at least two designers and one programmer, as well.
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This made for a very compelling read. As someone who took the animation test, and in general is looking to work in animation, this rings true to the atmosphere and position echoed by both employer and employee work from. While there is a difficulty ,especially in animation, for creating an equation for making an effort profitable or beneficial with consideration to the time spent, the requirements of the employer and and the specifications of the job in question need to remain the focus. The test asks the artist consolidate their efforts and conform their entire practice and formative knowledge of their craft, into the work given to them. It is in many ways resembles thesis statement which clearly summarizes the subjective stance of its writer while alluding to all the inner workings and efforts done in order to reach a definitive position. It is disheartening to think any creative individual would value their own efforts above an opportunity to work alongside another creative mind, creating things that have the ability to touch the minds and hearts of a large audience. And while it is understandable the failings of our efforts are demoralizing, I hate to think that some would say it better not to try then to try and fail. If anything there are things I learned from taking the test, questions I had to ask myself, realities thats had to be faced. Thanks for all the hard work Mike, as well as everyone else out there.
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