I interviewed for 2 Analyst 3 positions at Comcast. During the interview process I received an offer at another company.
Position 1:
1. Recruiter interview (female)
2. Hiring Manager interview (male)
3. Panel interview (3 males)
4. Tech interview (skipped because I interviewed w/them for 2nd role)
5. Director of the team interview (male)
6. 2nd interview with hiring manager (male)
A few red flags I observed:
1. Excessive interview process: I come from the recruiting space, and I can tell you that 6 interviews is excessive for an Analyst role. As some of the most reputable recruiters and career coaches will tell you, if you can’t figure out if someone is a good fit in 3 interviews or less, you will miss out on attracting good talent.
2. Clear disparity of women in Analyst roles, especially on this team: I interviewed with a total of zero women on this team. Not one. Note that although the recruiter was female, she is not on the team. When I reluctantly asked if there were any women on the team during the panel interview I was told that there weren’t any and that this was an issue that they were aware of and have been reminded of by their VP. They stated that unfortunately, there just haven’t been any women who have applied for the role, except for me.
I understand that there is a disparity of women in the tech industry and in analyst roles in general. That is why companies, like Comcast, need to do more to develop women in these areas. So, for the hiring manager to then say that I didn’t have enough expertise in SQL is evidence that they are doing the opposite of what they preach. We know we need to hire more women for our Analyst roles but we don’t want to put in the effort to develop them. This is the feedback that he provided to the recruiter when she asked him. Even though he didn’t feel that I was a good fit for the role he was still going to make me proceed with 2 additional interviews which would have been a complete waste of time for all parties involved.
I truly believe that the only reason I made it as far as I did in the interview process was because they wanted it on record that they “tried” to hire a female for this role but there just weren’t any that were 100% qualified for the role, as if any candidate is ever 100% qualified for any tech role. Also, keep in mind that their recruiter is the one who reached out to me, a few times, on LinkedIn for this role.
3. False claims of diversity & inclusion & professional development: This ties in with # 2. One of the reasons I have always admired Comcast is because they talk a lot of about diversity & inclusion and professional development and building up their staff. I saw no evidence of this in an area where there is a known deficit in their company – women in data and women in tech.
4. An observation that I have made over the years when I have applied to roles at Comcast is that it's extremely difficult to get your foot in the door, unless you are applying for Customer Service roles, because they prefer to hire and promote internally but to a degree that is unfair to external candidates.
Position 2:
The process consisted of 1 interview with the hiring managers, a male and a female. I respected this interview process a lot more because it was highly efficient and one of the hiring managers was a woman.
When I asked what skills and characteristics were most important for the role they told me that having a personality where you're a lifelong learner and motivated to always learn new things was the most important. That she can teach me everything else but having the desire to want to do these things is something that can’t be taught. I couldn’t agree more. She literally summarized me in a nutshell with that statement and it made me feel that this was the team I wanted to work on as it so hard to meet like-minded people who believe in continuous growth & development. Aside from that, they didn’t ask me any technical interview questions on SQL or Tableau, which I studied for and was prepared to answer.
The feedback I received from the recruiter was that I interviewed well but they needed someone with more SQL experience. Sound familiar? So, why tell a candidate that the desire to learn and grow were the most important thing when being a SQL expert was. This position did ask for a “SQL expert” which I told the recruiter before I interviewed that I'm not yet the hiring manager still wanted to interview me. Why, to say they did their part to fix the gender gap by interviewing a woman for the role?
My advice to Comcast is, put your money where your mouth is. If you truly want diversity & inclusion then you need to develop women in data &in tech. Do more instead of pretending that you are doing your part to fix the disparity. Don’t expect other companies to develop women in tech and then hope that they come to Comcast. Why would they if you don’t practice what you preach.
