I will be very direct: Medallia raises the bar when it comes to interviews to new heights. They have a great team with some of the most positive, enthusiastic people I have met in my professional life.
I was contacted back in September by one of their recruiters through LinkedIn. After a short exchange of emails, I took a phone interview with a person from HR who was my main point of contact even though I didn't hear from him again until the very end of the interview process.
After that first interview, I moved on to a 2nd phone interview with a Customer Solutions Manager. Great experience as well and ended on a positive note, leading to the famous Medallia Challenge.
I actually enjoyed completing it very much and upon submitting it, I was informed a few hours later that I was invited for a final round @ Medallia's HQ.
This is when things got complicated. You see, I am based in Dubai, UAE, something clearly mentioned on my LinkedIn profile, as well as on my resume. I had also informed the recruiters initially that I wasn't a US national, meaning I needed to get a visa to go to the US. Upon informing the recruiter, I was told they had decided to conduct the final round via video conference.
Due to the time difference between California and Dubai, I did 3 interviews between 9pm and midnight (with a short break between the last 2 interviews) at the end of a very busy day at work...
Again, the persons who interviewed me were great talking to, despite technical issues delaying the interviews with every single person that interviewed me.
Strangely, a couple days later I was informed by email that I was invited for another final round, this time on site @ Medallia's HQ. This was great news for me as I really wanted to get a chance to meet the team.
It wasn't an easy task though as it was a 16 hours flight to California and I had to go through 3 interviews while completely jet lagged. I still felt it was a positive experience, but a couple days later, I was informed that the hiring manager decided that I was not a good fit for the role and that they were pursuing other candidates.
I honestly will keep great memories of the whole experience in general. But there are many things I feel could be improved in the hiring process:
- I was contacted by 4 different recruiters which made things a bit confusing as I didn't know at times who to email to follow up during the interview process.
- While the use of brain teasers is still common in some companies, some of the ones used in the interview process are in the list of questions that were "banned" by other companies like Google, due to being unnecessarily difficult and/or not representative of one's skills.
Last but not least, I actually started this journey knowing that it would not work out. For a very simple reason: I am not based in the US, am not a US citizen and do not have a green card. Meaning, even if I get an offer, I would need to wait till next April for a shot at getting an H1 visa.
For those who don’t know, last April, the quota for H1 visas was not reached, but exceeded in a single day (April 1st), 160000 applications against a quota of 65000. A lottery was conducted to pick the 65000 lucky winners.
Finally, once you get the visa, you cannot start working before 6 months. In other words If I got the visa in April, I wouldn’t have been able to join Medallia before October 2015.
Now I seriously doubt any company would wait nearly a year for a candidate to join their ranks, and that is being a best case scenario! Because their legal team got involved in the last days before the final verdict and it was clear from the emails sent to me that the lawyer was trying to find a loophole or exception, I think that might have played a part in my candidacy being rejected in the end. And who am I to blame them? It’s natural.
But I still find it strange that we had to go through a 2 month process before reaching such a conclusion that was inevitable from the very beginning. I am not sure if their recruitment team is used to recruiting candidates from overseas but it certainly seemed peculiar that not a single person inquired about whether I was able to legally work in the US or not…
