The concept of getting work samples from potential employees is not new, and in certain industries it’s absolutely the only way to go (artist’s portfolio, etc.). However, in the IT field there seems to be a new wave of companies that are not just asking for, but requiring candidates to submit work samples even prior to any interview process beginning.

This may seem logical and even reasonable to some but in the IT world issues surrounding proprietary work as well as intellectual property rights abound, and if you like being employed (and also don’t want to be sued) then you’d better not share work that isn’t yours to share.

Ethical issues aside I have two problems with this trend first that I’m not sure what companies truly gain (information about the candidate) that can’t already be learned during the interview and secondly it continues the trend of ratcheting up the technical portion of the interview to a place where the level of detailed information that is required begins to work against companies and actually starts to qualify out some of the best possible candidates for their job and environment.

Obviously moving forward candidates should be prepared to share some level of their work taking precaution not to share proprietary information, but I also believe that companies need to also be flexible to each individual candidates situation(and their ability to share work) or they’ll find that the pool of talent that they can pick from may become very limited.

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