Adknowledge Interview Questions & Reviews in Kansas City, MO Area

Interviewed Sep 2009 in Kansas City, MO (took 4+ weeks)

I was first contacted by an Adknowledge recruiter via a cold phone call. He described the job and the company a little bit, and asked me 5-10 screening questions.

After a couple days, the recruiter emailed me a "case study", which basically asks you to analyze a small data set, followed by a couple questions about your experience. In my opinion, the test was very poorly written, and the method they used was flawed.

After another couple days, the recruiter set up a phone conference with the hiring manager and another person on the team. The interview was in most part technical, and it was centered on my answers to the "case study". The hiring manager didn't sound very knowledgeable, he didn't understand the concept of randomization, and suggested that you can use plain linear regression when the response is binary. The other person sounded more knowledgeable, but his style was a little too intimidating to my liking.

After about a week, the recruiter contacted me again saying that they would like to fly me in to Kansas City for an onsite interview. The interview lasted about 4 hours, all with the hiring manager, and I can honestly say that it is unlike any other interview that I have ever been through. Basically, he just asks questions from a booklet, going in chronological order from high school to now. We went through high school, college and grad school in the first 1.5-2 hours. Some of the questions are like GPA, activities, awards, what I like and dislike about the school, high point and low point while in school, how I study, what I do in spare time/weekend/summer, what motivated me to get through school, who had the biggest influence on me while in school, and etc. After that, he gave me a piece of paper containing 50-60 words, and asks me to pick my 10 strength and weaknesses. A lot of those terms are ambiguous and many didn't apply to me (e.g. selecting A player). I had a very difficult time coming up with 10 strengths and didn't have enough time to get 10 weaknesses. After that, it was lunch with the team, which was the only portion of the interview that was technical; basically they asked some questions about what I did before. In the afternoon, the hiring manager asked questions about the jobs I have had. Some of the questions are, responsibility, title, salary, what I like and dislike about the company, high point and low point while there, how smart are the coworkers, what would my manager say my 3 strengths and 3 weaknesses are, what I think are my manager's 3 strengths and 3 weaknesses. After that, he asked about career goals, what I want to accomplish, and about 10 situational questions, which are in the format of, name a situation where I had to deal with this, and how I handled it. I think for half of those questions, I answered I never encountered such situation. In the end, the hiring manager told me that I will not get the job because I didn't answer many of his questions and a lot of my answers were vague.

I honestly don't know what the company was trying to gain from asking me all those questions, especially the educational portion, they are being really nosy by asking so much information and I don't see how they are related to the job. I don't know about other people, but I really didn't feel comfortable sharing that much personal information with someone that I just met. Also, some of the questions like low point in school, I really didn't have any significant failures while in school, so I just say I did badly in tests a few time, but apparently the hiring manager wasn't happy with my answer, and I really don't know what he was looking for.

I think the problem I had was that I was being too honest during the interview. If I don't know, don't remember or didn't encounter some situation and I would just say it, but since they want an answer for every question, you have to make something up. But then again, if lie is the only way to do well in the interview, I am not sure if this is the type of company that I want to work for.

One more thought, Adknowledge would not reimburse meals during the trip, which is quite unusual. When I asked the recruiter about this, he said the reason is that I would have to eat whether I come to the interview or not. In addition, he said people don't even ask for it because most people that come to interview are not working, and are happy to get the interview, and those that are working don't care about the extra $10-$30. What he said is true, but to say it out like that just made me feel that the company is cheap and trying to take advantage of the candidates. This together with the way they conduct the interview really make me wonder how they can attract top talents.