I applied online. The process took 5 weeks. I interviewed at Hotjar (Dubai) in Jan 2022
Interview
I applied for the position in January, 2022. After a quick HR call (which was scheduled after my CV was shortlisted for the position), I was given a take home task with 1 week to complete. I really liked that the project was already setup for the task and assignment was to another endpoint which was very interesting. I completed the task in about a day and then submitted for review.
I informed the recruiting manager as soon I was done with the task. However the task review took 8 more days after task completion deadline (almost 2 weeks since task was submitted for review).
I proceeded to next step, which was technical interview. Technical interview was more of a conversation around my experience and general thoughts around Microservices, Monoliths, Python and Databases. Overall I felt interview went great and signed off happily as I also got some of my questions answered. I was told that it would take around a week for them to respond on next steps, and I would know either way (if I make it or not).
Week later I got an email that I have not made it to next round due to quality of applications received and not only interview performance played a role in the outcome but also work culture fit is unmatched.
Overall the process was smooth albeit slow. You are paid for the take home task which is fantastic. My only suggestion would be to have more transparency and detailed feedback on why candidate is rejected based on technical interview performance as that feedback is probably already summarized internally to compare the applicants, and its only matter of sharing it at that point?
Sharing detailed feedback makes more sense to me because at that stage of the recruitment process, company has already invested on the candidate to some extent (paying for take home task and engineering time spent on interviews), so why not make Hotjar even better place by sharing rejection feedback (who makes it to interviews stage of the process) to help the candidates for their future opportunities?
I applied online. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Hotjar in Feb 2022
Interview
Pros:
Recruitment process is well documented on their website:
- call with recruiter
- technical test
- technical interview
- team fit interview
Cons:
Got rejection right after intro call with recruiter (20 min) with no clear reason, just general:
"Having discussed it internally as a hiring team, I’m sorry to inform you that you have not made it through to the next round. We had a really hard time making a decision due to the high quality of applicants received."
Company says, that they completely transparent but looking into above message it's really not the case.
One reason to get rejected which i can think of - company state salary range 60-80k EUR. I have told recruiter, that my current salary is 67k EUR and i will do my best to get at least the same or higher. Looks like, she didn't like it.
Also, Hotjar asks everybody to use headsets: "It is your responsibility to always have a good internet connection and a high-quality headset (it must be a headset)" - which was not the case during the interview.
Recruiter had a terrible connection - image and sound froze a few times, also she wasn't using headset - had to guess what she is asking.
As outcome. Hotjar looks interesting on a paper, but in fact i had a terrible experience with them, so wouldn't recommend anyone to apply
I applied online. I interviewed at Hotjar in Oct 2020
Interview
When you read about the company, it's inspiring. Emails I received were great when it comes to template emails, you get some links to video CEO welcoming in the process and Q&A video. But it just went down when I had to interact with a real human (Technical Recruiter).
The first email had a sentence:
> In the meantime, don't hesitate to reach out with any questions.
So I asked, but no response, I have to ask it again during the interview.
The interview was strange at least for me.
In Team Manual, they wrote:
> It is your responsibility to always have *a good internet connection* and *a high-quality headset* (it must be a headset) during your ‘online availability’ times.
When I joined the meeting, the interviewer was late a bit (I thought nevermind), no headset/headphones - so I constantly was listening to my echo, we had interview interruption because of an internet connection on the interviewer side (and I was nervous as usual on any interview, but this just adds a bit of stress again, as I was thinking that it might be my side).
Another moment is about rushing (I have read such here in glassdoor), email said:
> we'd love to have a ~20 minute call
We scheduled a call for 30 minutes, but when I joined, the interviewer said, that usually, it takes ~10 minutes. With the break mentioned above, we finished a call in probably 15 minutes or less and questions were not encouraged really.
I got an email with a general rejection, I asked for details, so I could learn from that experience, but I received nothing in response.
One of the core values:
> 3. Work with respect
I don't think that my whole interaction could be marked as respect. With such interaction, you got real doubts about other core values and how they are lived.