Sapient Senior Associate L1 Interview Questions & Reviews

Interviewed Aug 2009 in Arlington, VA (took 1 week)

To preface, I am a former employee at Sapient who left on good terms so my interview process may be out of the norm. I was contacted by a recruiter via LinkedIn. I responded within a few days, but did not hear back for a couple of weeks. I probably would have had to wait longer, except I personally reached out to some friends still at the company to give the recruiter a little nudge.

When the recruiter finally contacted me, he set up an interview fairly quickly. The on-site interview consisted of 3, 1-hour segments which included a personality test, a technology "problem" sheet, and finally a presentation in which you solved the previously mentioned problem.

The personality test consisted of questions revolving around the typical "how do you work in a team environment" or "how did you handle failure" questions. The technology test wasn't particularly challenging, but they are working on more a complicated problem for future interviews.

The office culture has not changed a bit since I left which is definitely a good thing. My interviewers were friendly, engaged, and very fond of their employer. There is a game room with foosball, darts, and pool, which I did not have a chance to play in. From my past experience, the personnel there is top notch and full of very bright, young professionals.

My biggest complaint with the process revolves around their contracted HR department. First, the initial lag time when they contacted me (this is an important point) and when they finally got around to scheduling an interview (or even acknowledging I was alive) is unacceptable.

Second, their HR department definitely tried to give me a "hard sell." Their initial slogan was "we're hiring, bet you don't hear that too much these days" or something along that line, and they definitely tried to use that as a negotiating chip. I was told that my salary expectations weren't realistic and that I should be happy with whatever they offered. When I pushed back, they made it seem like it was a huge hassle to go up the food chain to get me what I wanted, and the recruiter then tried to point out that I was "leaving my company for a reason, so take that into consideration."

Except I wasn't the one who made the first move and they had contacted me. At that point I duly reminded her of who had contacted whom first and how I am still perfectly happy at my current employer. Additionally, their base salary would only MATCH what I currently made, which ultimately didn't cover the cost of jumping ship. At that point the conversation became much friendlier and the pressure tactics stopped.