I had a recruiter reach out and despite not actively looking for a job, I had an interest in the EdX team, and wanted to at least explore. The initial call with the in house recruiter was nice, but she couldn't answer the majority of my questions. I agreed to a follow up call with the team so I could learn more.
Copying over my follow up email:
Hi -----
I did want to give some feedback on the interview process. It seemed like both you and A were communicating with me but not on the same page with timelines, that I had already had a call set with you, etc. Additionally, I asked A to let the team know that I was traveling on the road for several weeks and to explain why I wasn't as presentable as usual! That didn't get communicated. P seemingly knew nothing about me. Given the number of questions I had about the team and role, I was anticipating the opportunity to ask those questions, get to know more, etc etc. Instead, I popped on the call and there wasn't much intro/small talk rapport. P listened to me intro myself, explain why I was in a restaurant, traveling etc, then just asked "did you know we were going to do a technical interview?" then just sent a link and jumped right into it. I was pretty caught off guard as I was hoping to have some discussion about the team and role and how things worked over there before getting to any process - and the email A sent in advance also presented a much different experience. I was a bit a deer in headlights, and fighting with the "should I keep trying or ask the questions I want answered to see if this time is worth it."
When I was finally able to ask team questions, it wasn't clear by his initial explanation what it was the team actually worked on. I did get some idea of the team make-up, but he mentioned it was "hard to get full time people" and we "have a lot of churn", but that the contractors were included the same as the rest of the full time employees.
From the start, the experience felt very impersonal. I imagine you are feeding a significant number of folks through to them. Hopefully, moving forward, you can address some of the process here so when you do find a good fit, their interview experience will be smoother than mine.
When working at --, we held similar "coding challenges" as a way to see how folks communicate, but we would never "cold answer" a call and dive right in. That sets a bad tone and for folks who might be great devs but panic when on the spot, it doesn't allow them to shine in the best light. Things to consider with your process moving forward.