I recently was able to interview for what would be my dream job, a mid level financial analysis managment position at a very well known and respected company that I have always wanted to work for. Unfortunately I didn’t get the position, and while I was told that it had nothing to do with this, I still wonder what I should have done in this situation.
This particular position involves lots of modeling in Excel, and while I believe my Excel chops are pretty darn good (I’m one of the “gurus” at a very large company, taught classes, etc) the company I was interviewing with wanted more detail I guess. After the interview was completed, the manager asked me to send into them electronically a couple of my financial models that I had done for my old company for them to see. I was rather taken aback, and said I’d have to get back to them on that, as they are all rather large (25 - 50MB +) and designed to be fed data from other live Databases (they are).
I really struggled whether to do this at all this for a few reasons:
a) It did seem to me a bit unethical to ask for what is proprietary information
b) the mechanics of moving these spreadsheets being that they were larger than what most corporate e-mail systems would take
c) since this in internal information, there were SEC issues and it was likely not to mean much out of context anyways
offset by:
d) The job was my dream job so I really wanted it
e) finally, my old company and this company were in no way competitors, and no way for the information to be in any way useful to them (one is a service company, one is mfg, and both in COMPLETELY seperate industries)
I also wondered if this was some kind of mental game for ethics. I thought about it long and hard, but what I ended up doing was taking these models, loaded bogus information into the inputs to clear out proprietary information, and then copy and pasted values the entire spreadsheet then sent it along.
Has anyone ever been in this position before? What would you have done?
Wouldn’t his have cleared out your formulas, thereby defeating the purpose? I ask because while interviewing for a position I was also asked to submit a financial model in Excel and cutting and pasting ruined my work. Luckily I was interviewing through a recruiter who caught it and I resubmitted.
I should mention that this was around 5 years ago so I may have screwed it up some other way and my memory may be faulty.
I would make sure your current employer doesn’t catch wind of this. I would imagine that you’ve signed a non-disclosure agreement with them at some point, and those can be pretty strict. Most companies have one, especially large companies. I know I would be toast if any document, code, or report that I created for my employer wound up in another company’s hands.
It makes sense for an interviewer to ask for some sort of sample or demonstration of your skills, but to ask specifically to see something you created for another company, presumably under an NDA? Totally inappropriate.
I wouldn’t have given it over because, as you said, it was proprietary information. The requestor would/should have understood that. Instead I would try to find a way to describe the features in some detail, what it does, where it gets the information etc and the thought process that spawned the creation. Also, because they wouldn’t be able to see it work properly anyway you run into the taboo of letting someone see unfinished work. I’ve had this bite me in the butt more than once within my organization. My Excel gizmos needed to access information on a network drive that was unavailable to the muck-a-muck who wanted to see the thing work. His determination: it doesn’t work, give the project to someone else.
Its always nice to get something for free, which is what that interviewer has done. Will he ask you to bring clients along next? Something stinks about this whole thing.
btw- Have you wondered as to whether or not it was an Ethics question instead of an Excel question? Perhaps they have proprietary programs that they’d have you working on that they might not like to see given out during job interviews that you might have in say five or so years from now…?
I consider it unethical of the interviewer to ask for data or work product from another company. You got rid of the private data, but the formulas themselves are work product paid for and owned by your current employer. No interviewer has the right to be sent that, IMO. I agree wih those above who have suggested that this was an ethical, not a technical, question.
That’s exactly what it was. The man knew what he was asking and was more interested in your response than in getting the “example of your work” (which as you know, is not actually your property). A firm “No sir, I can not supply you with that information” would have been the appropriate response.
IMO, the interviewer should have asked you to describe a complex spreadsheet you designed if they really wanted to find out if you know as much about Excel as they think you should. Assuming the interviewer knows Excel, that should be adequate to find out if you are bluffing or ignorant. I’ve asked that in interviews and it works great. Anyone who knows enough to describe the describe the process can build the spreadsheet. I agree with the posters who say this sounds like an ethics quiz, unless the interviewer is stupid or dishonest.
Thanks for all your responses. I have to say I’m still not sure what this was… but thanks for the thoughts.
I actually had some public examples of my work with me, as well as throughly described the processes behind their creation during the in-person interview. Since I manage people, I believe that they were concerned I was riding off other work.
I actually thought this, and protested upon the request. I even followed up with the interviewer’s boss, specifically with my ethics concerns, after the interview whom I also talked with regarding my concerns and my disinclination to provide it. He assured me they really just had technical abilities concerns. I told them I would provide samples of the work with ** no formulas or source detail **, but with detail descriptions regarding it’s construction. Since the output was 3 - report GAAP financials (Balance sheet, Cash Flows, Inc Statement) it is public domain formatting.
If they really wanted to take it that far with headgames regarding ethics, I guess it was a Kobiyashi Maru anyway.
