Their interview process is highly unusual. The technical interview in particular, they sent me a brief to prepare for a 2 hour technical interview. It took a considerable amount of time to prepare. I was unsuccessful, however the feedback given was quite flimsy. They stated that I went into a lot of detail but provided the answers without allowing the opportunity of a discussion to get to the answer. This was quite strange given that the brief was quite prescriptive and the answers were provided as such. At different points I paused to ask and prompt a discussion by asking if there were any questions, majority of the time they said no and asked me to keep going that everything was OK. One of the managers had connectivity issues, so I'm not confident of how much of the presentation was followed. It is confusing and this has left me quite disappointed. Then they asked for the slides afterwards. To be honest it felt like they looked for any reason not to progress me. But they've taken the slides, unpaid work. I've left feeling like the process was set up to harvest and ingest work and strategy from applicants for free. Disappointing.

Gearset pitch their four stage recruitment process as a way to make sure they find the right person, because they care about people. It’s psychological warfare. First stage was a 1 hour telescreen, second stage was an independent task, third stage was a 2.5 hour technical interview, and finally the fourth stage was another 2.5 team fit interview - all done remotely. Throughout the latter stages I was interrogated, which I expected for technical stage, but not for the fourth and final team fit stage. I was told not to prepare but was asked many competency based questions, which required preparation to give thorough and well constructed answers. I echo a previous review, this is not at all typical for a team fit interview, which is usually much more relaxed and with a few people from the team to ensure they can work with you. It was very scripted and some of the questions in my opinion were deliberately designed to catch you out. Imagine my horror, when I had got all the way to the final round, to find out their decision by email. For a company that claims to care about people, I am not sure an email is the best way to communicate a decision when a candidate has invested so much time jumping through so many hurdles. In that single moment I was made to feel nothing like a person, more like a number. The feedback I received in my opinion was ridiculous - I appreciate it’s more about how you come across than how you think you come across but in the same interview and other interviews in the process I gave plenty of examples which demonstrated my competency in both personality requirements, all ignored. It’s a shame the decision came down to one person, who in my opinion had a very single minded view of the type of person they wanted, and this person, I feel made it clear they do not value diversity or inclusion at all. I agree with a previous review, it’s clear this team fit interview is the defining factor, over the ability to do the job well, in which case it really should be at the start of the process, to save time for all parties Gearset, don’t just talk the talk, walk the walk. There’s many companies out there, much bigger than you, and clearly more diverse than you, who have the the decency to call candidates with feedback, even after only one or two interviews, let alone four stages. There’s never an excuse to not treat people like they are human, certainly when you ask so much more from them at the recruitment stage than most other companies in the country. It’s a two way process, give back, what you expect others to put in, and refine your process if a candidates team fit is most important to you. I would not recommend Gearset to any of my peers. It goes to show they have considerable work to do when it comes to their candidate experience, which unless they get with the times, and the pace of the job market, will continue to hold them back.