Zinodaur came to me cap in hand asking for a job with Bitscratch, then fell off the end and cost me a very good designer who was then busy by the time I went back to them saying the position was still available.
It might be an age thing, I know he is quite young, and maybe he does not understand the market. Or, maybe the market has changed since the days I went round job hunting. I will post our messages here so people can judge for themselves;
Hi Zinodaur,
many thanks for your reply.
OK, I have looked over your logos and design work and it seems that you do seem to be good at logo and marketing design.
Did BFL actually commission you to make that advert or is it something you did just to show off your skills.
So if I were to consider you as a marketing manager, have a look at our site (
www.bitscratch.org) and tell me how you would go about fulfilling the role, what your steps would be to help get the company noticed, and how you believe that you over anyone else should be considered for the position. With your answers I will form an opinion of whether or not I believe that you could be the right candidate.
Your age is not something I am overly concerned about- at 18 I started my software company and by 21 I was already well established with 2 offices and 15 staff. So I have confidence that young ambition is a positive thing.
Where abouts in Romania are you based? I have spent quite a bit of time around Bucharest.
Many thanks
B
If you take notice, you'll see that the posters for BFL aren't of the highest quality / very polished. They were all done in about one hour, because there was a contest that was closing soon. So they weren't commisioned, just for fun.
Unfortunately the site is under construction, so I couldn't say much. But I would probably take on the steps of Oreo's creative marketing, meaning creative ads that would follow current events, all posted on social networks, with a good possibility of going viral, should they be clever enough. From what I know, it's the first company that does BTC scratch tickets, so I think it can and will get noticed rather quickly.
I think I would be above everyone else not because I have the most experience, but rather because I have the potential of having the most experience starting with you. If I can do all those stuff on my portfolio at 19, without being under anyone's wing, I can only imagine where my creativity could end up given the right direction.
About me, I'm based in Constanța ( near the Black Sea ), but I'll be moving to Bucharest this autumn.
Cheers !
Luigi
Hi Luigi,
Many thanks for your reply, with good points included.
OK I would like to test your design skills. Create for me an example scratch card which you think would have a great appeal to people visually.
The card can be any size, shape or even a cut out system.
It must have 2 'scratch zones' because the BITSCRATCH system has 2 matching codes to get into a private wallet.
If you design is really appealing then we will start discussing taking you on as a team member.
Many thanks
B
Zinodaur never replied to me at all- not even a polite email to point out that in his opinion this would be classed as 'spec work'. Of course, he was willing to do 'spec work' for a BFL competition- but not to prove his skills as a designer to a company he was applying for a position with.
My message to him never implied that the design would even be used- I just wanted to test his on the fly, problem solving skills before offering him a position. I was assuming from his previous reply that he had a level of maturity and really wanted to grow with a company, so he would eagerly show off these skills.
However I waited, and had no reply. Finally I sent this;
I guess you were not as interested in the position as you made out to be then?
to which I received no reply so I moved onto the other candidate. He then got back to me and said sorry but he had taken up another offer. So I was pretty pissed with Zinodaur, and gave him feedback for timewasting.
After My feedback this message appeared in my PM:
I guess you were not as interested in the position as you made out to be then?
I stopped responding because I will not take any spec work whatsoever. If you wanted to see my work, you could have checked my portfolio, not ask me to create you a new scratch design for nothing.
Please remove your trust comment on me being unreliable.
Thank you.
Which has the hallmarks in my opinion of arrogance. It really annoys me when people, who obviously have never run their own business and do not know the concept of reliability, cost me time, money or staff in business ventures, especially when I was trying to give the guy a chance.
I responded thus;
Hello Zinodaur,
My comment stands; you approached me for a position and then when I wanted to take things further you stopped responding. You could have replied at the time stating your reservations on doing 'spec work' as you put it; which itself is untrue, because I asked for no such thing. I asked you to show me an example of how you would design a scratch card. I did not ask you to contractually create a sell-able design. I would never have used such a design, I just wanted to test your ability. I am sure that you will find out this is something that any serious company would do, especially when you have such a limited portfolio and no references to speak of.
You asked me to give you a chance and that you wished to 'grow with a company'. Based on my own experiences I decided I would grant you this chance and turned away a very good marketing manager who was seeking a position at the time. By the time I realised that you were unresponsive, he had already taken a new job and was unable to come and work with us.
Basically your attitude, which you have now confirmed by flippantly saying 'I stopped responding' and accusing me of trying to get you to work for free, is very immature for someone seeking employment in what is a very competitive industry.
I am sorry that we were unable to find a way to work together and I hope that someday when you mature a little in the workforce, that you appreciate my position on the matter. However I do feel that until that time a warning needs to stand to others how our dialogue went, to give them a chance to honestly judge the situation.
Many thanks
Bob
For Bitscratch Inc
To which he could not stop himself from posting the following on my TRUST profile;
Said I was a "timewaster and unreliable" after I stopped responding to his messages because he was basically asking me to do spec work for a job interview. Spec work is not acceptable in my book, ever.Which I did NOT do as I pointed out above.
To sum up, Zinodaur does seem to have a good talent in design but honestly, his attitude really sucks right now. I would not want to risk my business on someone who can turn on a penny and not send out an email to a potential customer rand choose to ignore them. Especially if you are on a tight schedule, or have specific requirements, I have often found when dealing with my own HR that those who are not willing to put in the effort to make themselves heard, stand out or go an extra mile to be a team player, are the weak link in the chain that will cost you that contract, promotion or sale etc.
I wish him well in the future, but my comments stand at present.
