I had a call with the recruiter, who explained the company, the opportunity, and the type of candidate they were seeking.
I then received an email outlining the first interview steps: mutual introduction and initial questions, designing a data labeling pipeline, and a Q&A about the team and company.
I'm fully prepared for the interview. However, they rescheduled it to 45 minutes later without confirming if it worked for me, so I had to rearrange my other meetings.
I waited 15 minutes for the interviewer to show up. After introductions, we moved on to the data labeling pipeline, and I received positive feedback on my approach. This part took about 10-15 minutes.
However, the interviewer then asked multiple personal questions that are illegal in the US. Throughout these inappropriate questions, I was repeatedly asked if I could stay longer than the scheduled time, which I did.
The interview, scheduled for one hour, ran over by 45 minutes. Despite this, I received a rejection letter citing my technical knowledge as the reason, which is odd given that this part only took 10-15 minutes of the 1 hour and 45-minute interview. I will have my employment attorney contact Toloka about their illegal interview questions and processes.
I write this to warn others not to waste their time with a company that conducts unprofessional interviews and rejects candidates based on illegal questions.