What steps should you take to safeguard your intellectual property?
Recruiters have taken advantage of the situation in a country where the unemployment rate among the youth is on the rise, robbing desperate job searchers of their intellectual property.
During job interviews, some nefarious groups have continued to capture ideas from prospective applicants.
According to reports, the companies give a variety of situations that could occur at work. The job seekers must next explain how they would tackle the scenario, with some recruiters needing a set of tactics, work plans, and diagrams. The deceitful firms then go on and execute the greatest ideas they’ve gleaned during the interview without giving the job seeker who came up with the ideas a chance to present them.
Make intelligent decisions
Is there, however, a way for professionals who continue to lose their intellectual property in the guise of job interviews to seek redress?
In order to avoid getting the short end of the stick, intellectual property lawyer Jackson Awele advises job searchers to react to any listed job positions with caution.
He recommends job applicants to undertake the following to safeguard their intellectual property and stop the trend of their ideas being implemented by firms while they continue to tarmack.
Make a physical representation of your ideas
Writing down an idea is equivalent to publishing it, and copyright rules protect this. Unless you can reduce it to a real utility or concrete format, the notion is simply that, according to lawyer Awele.
This is to leave a digital imprint in terms of when the concept was conceived, so that remedy can be sought in the event of a disagreement.
“The most difficult thing to prove is who came up with the concept and when, but once you’ve written it down, you’ll be able to prove it.
with a digital trace to back you up in establishing who and when you came up with the idea.”
All correspondence with the firm should be documented
This is accomplished by ensuring that all communication from people seeking your ideas is recorded electronically, making it verifiable and traceable.
Mr Awele adds that keeping accurate records saves time later on when the ideas you gave out are used for commercial advantage. You can pinpoint the moment you gave out the concept and tie it to the time the organization used it for commercial gain.
“The issue is establishing that you did, in fact, give up the knowledge before they could commercialize it,” he explains.
During the procedure, be creative
This can be done by bringing an answering machine to record the oral interview, but if you are unable to do so, send an email summarizing what you said during the interview, including any presentations or presentations.
Do your homework on the company
This is accomplished by completing a company background check, reading Internet reviews from other job seekers and former employees, and understanding the way the company operates.
A job seeker can also call others in the field to find out more about the potential company and whether or not they are credible.