[ID Discuss] Guidance for someone interested in your field

[Cindy Alvarez]

> I much prefer to evaluate a series of tests. By looking
> at tests, (both at take-home and in-interview) I can
> get a better sense of the candidate's skills and
> approach.

This is funny, because just a few months ago over on sigia-l, someone was
complaining about the horribleness of employee tests.  "any employer who
needs to give you a test," they fumed, "just 'doesn't get it' and I
wouldn't work for them."

I never got a chance to refute that, but for what it's worth, I disagreed
completely.

I'll add a point to Joshua's list:

5. It's easy to be swayed into thinking the person with bigger client
names in their portfolio is a more experienced designer.  However, in many
cases a high-profile project means that there was a substantial team
working on it, and there's no way to tell whether the applicant did the
heavy intellectual lifting or just tweaked some Visios.

I was thrilled when my current job came down to a take-home test, because
I was confident that I was the person for the job, but knew I was up
against applicants with more years' experience and/or advanced HCI
degrees.

It was a pain - especially since I had to do it over a weekend - but it
got me the job and this has been a great environment for me to work in.

Cindy Alvarez