Post #461394 by Dr. Zarkov on Sat, Jun 13, 2009 5:47 AM

This is thoroughly obnoxious and wrong on so many levels. First of all, I am a senior marketing communications professional and for a potential employer to make you jump through these hoops is totally unethical. I have been unemployed for a while now, and it really steams me when I am pumped for information and advice during job interviews (most recently in two interviews with the same employer where between the first and the second they actually started implementing some of my suggestions), and then they don't hire you. Basically, what you have done is provide them with professional consulting services for free.

However, this situation is the worst rip-off I've heard of -- requiring you to come up with a sample presentation is completely out of bounds. My brother owns one the top commercial art firms in the world and when employees of one company attempted to hold a competition among design firms for a new logo, he had to sit the company president down and explain to him why this was unethical (even in the architectural commission competitions you hear about, the competitors are pre-selected and paid for their work).

Which raises another suspicion, perhaps unfair. Given the paucity of personal information provided by Tiki_KT, and the fact that he or she just joined Tiki Central the same day they posted this topic, I have to wonder if this is someone who wants Tiki Central members to do their work for them, or who already has the job and is doing market research on the cheap.