Had my first interview over Skype for two hours Friday evening. I thought it went really well and she asked me to come to the office the next day. That was Saturday and I already had plans but I said I could make it Sunday so I drove down Sunday only to meet with the cofounder because the CEO was busy.
He asked me a million questions. Most were about the product, but a lot of them made me uncomfortable, like “what makes you a winner?” and “what would you be willing to do to win?” In total, I was there for three hours while he picked my brain on the entire app. I felt like he was really asking me questions that I should be charging a consulting fee to answer!
I got home and figured I must’ve gotten the job because he seemed to like everything I said and was pretty impressed with me. Instead I got an email asking me to write a report on the benefit of a newsfeed in a fitness app, and also to critique the feature in apps that already had it. They basically wanted me to tell them the best way to go about putting a newsfeed in their own app, which I suspected was mining me for information for free.
I wrote the report, sent it to them, and he wrote back asking for more specifics! He really wanted a competitive analysis! I sent him a second version that basically outlining every single thing to consider in building a newsfeed.
Of course, I never heard back from them. I wrote them asking for feedback as to what I did wrong, etc. etc., and didn’t get a response. Finally, I contacted the recruiter, who must’ve said something to them because the cofounder wrote back, but only to say vaguely that I wasn’t what they were looking for. The recruiter has since dropped them as a client.
The CEO is nice but seems in over her head. The cofounder, on the other hand, is a pathetic manager and a rude man who likes to make people uncomfortable. When the company fails, it will be his fault.
He even contacted me months later to join the team, at which time I offered to work as a consultant because I didn’t trust accepting full-time position there. He asked my hourly rate and actually demanded that I sent pay stubs from my previous job as proof! That was beyond ridiculous and I already had a bad taste in my mouth, but I sent anyway and he agreed to the rate, but then backed out three days later claiming it wouldn’t work out because I wasn’t available to start for two weeks.
Reading the other reviews, my experience with them seems par for the course even though it was unlike any other interview process I’ve ever had anywhere, so it’s obvious there are some major management issues. I am really glad I didn’t end up working there!
