Zappos.com Customer Loyalty Team Interview Questions & Reviews

Interviewed Aug 2011 in Las Vegas, NV (took 5 months)

After 5 months of various testing at home & on-site & passing all of those with flying colors, I anxiously awaited the e-mail to notify me of my face to face interview! Alas, an e-mail did arrive a few weeks later to inform me that due to the amount of applicants waiting for an interview, I would instead be scheduled for a phone interview with a Recruiter. I was contacted about a week later to set up a time & we agreed on that.

The day came for the interview & much to my surprise, the call came a full hour earlier than expected. As to take advantage & not try to reschedule, I hurried to get to a quiet place to gather pen & paper to take notes. The Recruiter said that he had "finished some things early & figured" he would call early & hope I was home. (bad sign #1) No sweat, gathered my thoughts quickly & was ready to interview. I was told originally the interview would last about 30 min., the Recruiter informed me 2 seconds into the call that "this will be quick & shouldn't take more than 20 minutes. (bad sign #2). So, I was all set to answer questions about my resume & work history & then have some fun by seeing what "crazy" question he would ask (as I had seen in other reviews written)...WELL. I was then informed by the Recruiter that he was "unable to open my resume" (bad sign #3) which caught me off guard (since the resume had been in Jobvite since day 1 & everybody else had no problem opening it) as he had a full hour before our interview so why would he not have had that issue resolved BEFORE calling? In other words, no resume means he had no intention of knowing who he was interviewing, nor my experience, which only compounded the fact that he couldn't have seemed less interested in our conversation & sounded as if he had already decided on his choices for the position & was just trying to rush through the rest of the scheduled interviews. No funny anecdotes, no witty questions, no personality & no interest in anything besides rushing through a phone interview on a Friday afternoon. I've had more questions asked by Telemarketers.

I can not fault an entire company for one unfair interview, as everyone else I dealt with along the way was a pleasure. I do believe that I did not have a fair shot at a face to face interview & after 5 long months of having nothing but e-mails full of praise for passing tests & challenges, everything came down to 1 man who was not prepared enough to have even viewed the resume of a potential candidate, who never even intended to give me a chance. Am I weird? yes. Am I a "Culture Fit"?. yes. Is my schedule completely open to any hours & days? yes. Do I have transportation? yes, Do I have 20 years of excellent customer service experience? yes. Have I previously been a Call Center Manager? yes.
All of these questions & more could have been asked during this 15 (yes, 15, not even 20!) minute conversation.
I will continue to apply for Zappos every chance possible because I can positively excel in this position. I also know it was just an unlucky draw of the cards that this man was chosen to "interview" (I say that loosely!) me. And because I do my own research, it was nice to see he has a public profile on Facebook & an entry posted 2 days prior to my "interview" at 9am saying that he was "headed into work now to kick back with a beer & read some resumes". Yes, this is Las Vegas, but I really thought there would be a more professional standard when it comes to determining someone's future employment.

Good luck to everyone else & stay positive through all the lengthy waiting periods (you may get one of the other awesome folks in HR who had been my contacts up until "the end") & hope you get a chance at a face to face interview. 99.9% positive i'd have moved onto one if I had gotten a fair shot!