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Comment by lachyg | Hacker News Reader

One thing I've really struggled with since coming to San Francisco is that every company seems happy to take extensive time out of a programmer for an interview, including an audition project.

Yet if you ask this of a designer, you get shot down immediately for soliciting spec work.

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I think part of this may be that since programmers typically make more money and tend to be more valued, the upside for them of doing spec work is much higher.

Even if salaries for developers and designers are comparable in startups, this is in-general not true from what I've seen, so designers as a community have banded together to stigmatize doing spec work.

I'm explaining this situation, and how I think we might have gotten into it. To paraphrase a W3C spec: this comment is not normative.

Jeff's suggestion - perhaps not followed by everyone who does an "audition project" - is that the project be paid. (Spec work, of course, isn't guaranteed to be).

I understand, and applaud Jeff for that, but most companies don't pay for their interview process, many of which can be multiple full day affairs.

I can't imagine a company not getting backlash holding a design competition to 'interview' designers.

Programmers seem to work for free on Linux and other projects, while designers seem to be more eager to get paid. Given these common memes, people may think that programmers are eager to do any kind of work for fun.

The design profession is light years ahead of programming in that regard... Probably because of its print history.

I'm reminded of this great presentation by the mule design guy (NSFW) F*ck you, pay me: http://vimeo.com/22053820

The audition project is pretty unheard of. It's time consuming on both ends especially if it's a week or more. What's more common is the 4 hour assignment, which annoys me to no end anyways.

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