The hiring and Interview process at Shipwire was a colossal waste of time.
• There are multiple people conducting interviews but not communicating with each other about the interviewee/schedules/departments
• You are required to sign an NDA before interviewing for any position (I was required to sign at every interview) but the interviewer does not discuss anything even remotely sensitive.
• Interviewers have trouble communicating roles, responsibility and culture
In my personal experience:
• The recruiter scheduled me for a phone screen and then stood me up
• The email and phone numbers given to candidates are noreply@ and the support phone number. (even for follow-ups)
• multiple onsite interviews with different teams (for the same position) and none of the interviewers had any idea that I had been there before
• Was called out of the blue by the head of (department) to interview me for a position in their department (not the one applied for) because of my background.
• Interviewers asked all of the generic questions you would find on a website if you googled how to prepare for a job interview (hardly anything related to the role at all)
• Interviewers told me that they are very pleased with how the interviews went and my answers and tell me that they will contact me within a week and then they go dark. After TWO MONTHs and four attempts to follow-up, (I had already secured another position elsewhere at this point) I receive the generic; "we wish to advise you we will not be moving forward with your application at this time"[SIC] email.
It doesn't take much to make sure candidates have a good experience -- mostly just a bit of humility. You never know when something like that will come back to bite you.
Good thing to keep in mind if for no other reason than when this person you don't hire starts work at another company instead, you want them to tell their team: "You guys should really be using Shipwire for this".
Shipwire admins,
I want to share some valuable advice from my current CEO and COO:
"When I was in college, I had several on campus interviews with different companies. I had several job offers at the end of it all. One experience stands out to this day. One guy from a company called [company name] (I still remember) was a total [expletive]. He didn’t think that he was being one. But he was arrogant. He didn’t care to create a friendly environment. He wasn’t personable at all. He criticized me for what I didn’t have in experience, vs. challenge me to tell him what I can do. I left that thinking that I would never want to work there or have anything to do with the company. For this reason, I am super sensitive to candidate experience.
A couple of instances of candidate feedback have been brought to my attention. Feedback was specific to feeling like we were short with them, impersonal, uninterested, not professional. They could be just isolated cases, but being an [experience background] guy, I usually assume that if it’s happening once, it’s happening elsewhere.
We are hiring 30+ people per month. This means we will have on site interviews with between 100 and 150 people per month. Beyond that, we will screen as many as 500 people per month before they get on site. Think about that – we are touching 500 people per month – 6,000 people or more per year, and each one of them will leave with a perception of [Company Name]. Are we professional? Is this a place where they or their friends would want to work? Would they buy from [Company Name] after having this experience?
In every case, even when we think that a candidate is not a good fit at all, they should leave here feeling like they wish they could be here. That they are confident in or capability and professionalism. That they would trust their business to [Company Name]. EVERY candidate. "
Please take this to heart, and share with anyone that will screen or interview a candidate.