This review is a tricky one. Although I have rated my overall experience as a candidate needing a lot of improvement, I found the company and the environment a totally exciting place that will most likely deserve to be amongst the Great Places to Work. I will encourage anyone who gets the chance to interview to give it their maximum consideration and grab the offer if it suits them. This review is purely based on Candidate Experience in the interest of future improvement and even though this round of process needs improvement I would still consider future opportunities with the company if it ever came about.
The recruiter who interviewed me was such a cool person and everything that you would want to see in a team member who is collaborative, open minded, and highly skilled. The process itself was very disjointed. There was a 1.5 months gap between the 1st and 2nd interview with little communication and engagement in-between - so if I wasn't the sort of person that keeps an eye on the objective and is laser focused I would have lost interest completely.
There was very little engagement throughout the whole process and this is something that as a recruiter I know almost no one in the industry has got right and is something that I am proud to have held a high score throughout the years. The reason for my candidature rejection (that I had almost as much experience as my boss-to-be), I really could not buy. Smart companies don't make decisions like that. The reasoning was almost not well thought through. I really wished that people have the courage to be transparent and be able to say the truth and still keep the other person absolutely engaged and ready to come back again in the future - something that I mastered along the way. My guess is that it was probably cultural.
The stakeholder that interviewed me did a terrible job. She walked in and the first thing she said was that she is extremely tired as it is the end of the day. Would this be how I would want to excite people about my company if I was conducting the interview? Definitely not. She was hypo and all over the place which made me nervous and amused at the same time. She somehow got stuck in the early years of my career rather than focusing on what is important which is my skill as a recruiter. I did ask her at one point if she needs help but decided that I should let her run the show rather than me guiding her as to how it should go. Definitely needs training in interviewing skills and how to engage candidates to have an interest in your company. For me, the recruiter did that so I was able to cross off her experience and over look it.
From a company that is expected to go to great places, there was nothing innovative about the interview styles and questions, there was total lack of communication and managing expectation which led to a below average candidate engagement and experience. One part of me wanting to work for the company was that I knew I could fix this particular problem. Having said all of that, I have full confidence that they can eventually get the game right. :)