After a brief introduction and a few moments talking about my background, I ended up spending the better part of three (yes, three) hours listening to Mr. Mann talk about himself and his core values. During this time one of my biggest takeaways was that he was *very* comfortable with trash talking previous employees, potential employees, and even past clients in front of me, which is never a good sign.
He also stressed several times that Urgency was one of the most, if not the most important core value... including how part of that included working after hours or at home, for a salaried position. To quote: he said that he "understand[s] that everyone has families and life outside of work, but that everyone is expected to prioritize and make the proper sacrifices."
He also assigned several homework assignments that were to be the final decision maker for him in choosing someone for the position, that looked suspiciously like spec work. He stressed earlier that no matter what the project, he expects no less than three options to be given to him. No exceptions. The same was true for the three spec work assignments, so in the end it would be nine projects that he expected to see before making his choice. And they were all for current Lasting Image clients, so it was unclear if he was using this job opening as an opportunity to get some unpaid work done that he could then use later for client work. During his explanations of these projects, it became clear that the "Graphic Designer" position was more than that. There was no written copy for any of the projects (all of which required a decent amount of copy to go along with the visuals), and I would be expected to write it from scratch by researching the clients and coming up with relevant and captivating copy that would fit. The job would be more accurately described as a Production Artist slash Copy Writer slash Graphic Designer. He was looking for someone to do the jobs of two to three people while only paying one.
The final step of the "interview" was to solicit some personal work from me. Mr. Mann had a personal project that he wanted done, and was asking all his interviewees if they would like to work on ideas, sketches, and final designs for a mural at his home. He stressed numerous times that choosing to do this would absolutely, positively, in no way have any bearing on his hiring decision, but that the other people interviewing for the job were *very* excited and interested in working on this. Again, like the spec work homework, it showed all the telltale signs of trying to get design work done without having to pay for it. I do hope that the person who took this job presented Rick with an invoice for their work, since this was not a project for Lasting Image.
I say below that the interview was "Very Easy" because there wasn't really an interview, and that it was very easy to decide that I was not willing to work in such an environment. It was more sitting through a presentation meant to show how awesome and amazing and dedicated to the core values the owner of the company was. Based on all the buzz words and lingo that have been peppered throughout, I have an inkling that a good number of the glowing and flowery reviews here on Glassdoor were written by Mr. Mann himself.
