I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Meta (London, England) in Mar 2016
Interview
I was headhunted by Facebook. My first interaction with them was a call with a recruiter from the Menlo Park office who knew very little about design. A few days later I had a really great 90 minute interview / chat with a design manager in the Menlo Park office. After that, he put me straight through to the final round of interviews and asked me to fly out to California for onsite interviews. However I decided I'd be more interested in their London office instead of Menlo Park, so I got transferred to their London recruitment.
A couple of months later I had a video call with a recruiter from London who was much more knowledgable in design. She put me through to two 45 minute interviews with designers in London, which I was a bit surprised about, as it seemed like the recruitment process I went through in Menlo Park counted for nothing in London.
The first interview was an app critique which I enjoyed. The interviewer was very bubbly and worked hard to sell me on London and Facebook. However my second interview was incredibly disappointing and put me off the role entirely.
The interviewer was very negative about pretty much everything. It felt like he would rather be somewhere else. Both these interviewers were also from a team I had expressed no interest in, so during this phase I learned nothing about the team I had genuine interest for.
The recruiter got back to me promptly and said I wasn't a good fit for the roles they were looking for at that time. She asked for feedback on the interview process so I emailed her a longer version of what I said above.
I never heard back from her. Clearly they don't like getting critical feedback of their interview process, so now I know all I need to know about Facebook!
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Pick an app to critique and tell me what's good / bad
Thank you for recently interviewing with our team. We're sorry to hear about your poor experience with one of our interviewers. We'll take your feedback and work to improve the interview experience.
Straightforward like any big tech interview, but long and intense. Formats are pretty standardized so it just takes practice. Questions appear like it's from a bank, so if you're prepared you should be fine.
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Meta
Interview
I was reached out by a recruiter. Started with the recruiter call, then portfolio presentation, then full loop (Portfolio presentation - app critique - design challenge - background). They had very strong emphasis on design craft and visual excellence. Recruiter who helped me prep was very nice and helpful.
Typical interview process consisting of multiple rounds—Pre-screen, Portfolio Presentation, Full-Loop (Presentation, App Crit, Whiteboard Challenge and Behavioral) - Felt I did really well, and I got great feedback during the rounds but ultimately received no offer.