I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Starkey (Minneapolis, MN) in Feb 2015
Interview
Got reached out through LinkedIn by a recruiter, I decided to follow up. Everything went well for the first phone call, which only lasted about 2 minutes, recruiter did not have anything to say nor ask. I tried asking as much as possible, but would evade with simple answers. Then a second follow up interview with a recruiting manager. The manager who was suppose to call me, was late by 2 hours of phone call. Once I answered he asked "is this still a good time?", I answered "no"; and noticed on his tone of voice change, he got furious, and told me "I will inform HR to schedule another 'meeting'" sure no meeting after that. However after a manger change of voice would not want to work with them.
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Starkey
Interview
I applied online and then received a phone call within a couple of days. I was asked to set up a phone interview with a manager. I was able to get a phone interview with one of the staff, and based on the impression of the interview they decided to bring me in for an in-person panel interview. Before that, I had to fill out a questionnaire that had about 140 personality questions, basic math, algebra, and pre-algebra questions, word associations and definitions.
The in-person panel interview was average difficulty and was not too technical. Unfortunately, I did not learn the position was for a *manual* software tester position until the last minute. I wish the ad and the recruiter had been more clear about that. The position was advertised as a "software tester" position, and my impression was it would be inclusive of a variety of testing methodologies and tasks-- like unit testing, automated testing, writing test cases and scripts. I've interviewed for a software QA position before, and I was expecting something similar. During the interview, it became clear to me that it was not like a typical QA position at all. As the questions went on in the interview I could tell the team had already formed an impression of whether or not I'd be a good fit (and so did I). It was not a bad interview, but it wasn't a great one either.
As a side note, the recruiter insisted I get in as soon as possible. I was able to get the time off, but if I had known right off the bat what I know now, I would have declined an interview. Also, my employer is very strict about time off so I did have to make something up to get it off with less than a week's notice. I think recruiters need to be more respectful of the fact people still need to retain their current employment while they're looking for a new job.