“You want to make sure the intellectual property remains as yours”

Creative Career Conundrums is a weekly advice column from If You Could Jobs. Each week their selected panel of professionals from the creative industry answers your burning career questions to help you navigate the creative journey.

This week’s question:

I’m curious to know how to handle intellectual property (IP) during the interview phase.

I get asked to prepare plans, ideas and presentations as a practice task. Sometimes I get asked to share this up front with the possible future employer, then I will be invited to travel to the office for a presentation of my prepared material (at my own expense). I’ve a creeping feeling that in one occasion the possible employer wasn't looking to hire at all but just hunting for free and effortless marketing advice and ideas.

I was wondering if following up with a request to reimburse my expenses as well as sending something regarding my intellectual property would help let them know they need to pay me for my time and expenses travelling to their office location and they can’t use my material. I should have handled this better but at the time my interviewing experience was a little rusty.

Thank you in advance for your reply!

Alex Bec, cofounder of It’s Nice That, Creative Lives in Progress and If You Could Jobs:

Ah the murky world of interviewing for a creative role! Sadly, all too often (especially at smaller companies) these are rushed, unstrategic processes – so always have your wits about you. There are plenty of companies doing this brilliantly too – but you need to make sure you’re bringing your own analysis to each and every application to ensure the process is productive and positive for you, even if you don’t get the role.

It feels like there are two questions here, and both I think are pretty simple to answer.

Firstly, yes, in my opinion you should always retain the IP for work you’ve done for an interview task – especially if it isn’t paid. To do that I’d encourage you to always make it clear when presenting your work in an interview that the ideas and IP remain yours. It’s always worth including some kind of slide or note in the materials you deliver if you ever send something over. If you ever do send anything digitally, you want to make sure you keep the written communication acknowledging that the IP remains as yours. If you see something you’ve done crop up later, you’ll need something in writing to refer back to.

Secondly, for the travel and reimbursement, I don’t think it ever hurts to ask – especially if you’re flying or travelling long distances. If nothing else you’ll get a good sense of the values and inclusivity of the organisation you’re hoping to work for. Here in the UK it’s not regular practice to offer expenses for interviews, but equally the distances being travelled are usually far shorter.

If you do have to travel without expenses, it’s important to make sure you think hard before accepting the interview. Pick the interviews you feel you have a great chance of getting; ask how many candidates are left in the process, how many rounds there will be – get as much information on the process as you can so you can make an informed decision. If they can’t cover expenses, ultimately, you have to weigh up whether the likelihood of you getting the role outweighs the potential cost to you on getting there. And remember, there’s always the opportunity to ask whether you could interview digitally too.

If in doubt, I’d always urge you to trust your instinct. If something feels off about the process or the ask, just politely decline. In my experience, if something smells fishy, it’s usually fishy!

As a little extra, here’s a handy guide Creative Lives in Progress have put together all about preparing well for interviews here.

In answering your creative career conundrums we realise that some issues need expert support, so we’ve collated a list of additional resources that can support you across things that might arise at work.

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