EVB Inc. Interview Questions & Reviews

Interviewed Nov 2011 in San Francisco, CA (took 2 days)

I was referred to Evolution Bureau through a friend and was contacted by the HR director. We had a brief conversation over the phone detailing my background. She wasn't able to tell me what I was going to be interviewing for. That is awesome! But she did tell me I was going to meet with seven people, so block off about three hours. This is so great considering I don't even know what I am interviewing for! Luckily she did give me the names of each person, so I could do my typical pre-interview research on LinkedIn, the company website, Facebook and a general Google search.

I arrived to the interview and waited in the lobby for about 10-15 minutes. Their office is beautiful and they had several dogs running around and the receptionist was cleaning up from a breakfast she had made the office.

I met with the CEO briefly - he asked about my previous experience and what I liked about EVB . I then had to meet with six of the account and project management team directors, the ECD, strategy - the list was endless. They all asked me about my background and typical interview questions, but it seemed like they had all heard from someone that I wasn't the right fit so they weren't really taking the interview very seriously.

What really stood out to me in the interview was a few things:

1. I met with the Director of Business Development second (after the CEO, name shall not be given, but do your research and you can find out exactly who I am speaking of). This is the man who I would report to. Remind you, I had done my research and know what he looks like. I had even seen him outside prior to me entering the building and I knew who he was and that I was going to be interviewing with him in 30 minutes. The DBD approached me and said he was the ECD. I was taken aback by this and thought it was weird, but never corrected him (because the actual ECD came in at that time) which I think was my mistake even though what he was doing was terrible in itself. I'm not sure if he did this on purpose or if he was kidding around, but I didn't find it funny. I knew this wasn't going well when he told me that he asks serious candidates for samples of their persuasive writing skills and he never asked me for mine. How is this buddy?

2. No one knew what I was interviewing for - not even the CEO. There was a lack of decision making by the upper management and it showed, crystal clear. It sounded like they were possibly going to be creating a new position and/or having some internal changes in the "near" future but no one knew which way was up or down.

I walked out not feeling very confident about how things went which upset me because it is a great shop but looking back I am grateful. They have huge egos and I don't want to be apart of that.

I only give it a difficulty rating because of how long it was for one day and how many people I had to meet with. Questions were simple enough.