Appear Here Interview Questions

Application

I applied online. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Appear Here (Los Angeles, CA) in April 2018.

Interview

The posting is misleading, you are not applying for a freelance writing gig for the various areas listed. You are applying for a potentially one time gig. for one guide, which you will be paid for if published but doesn't determine an actual ongoing freelance role as suggested in the post. It "may" lead to additional work. Asks for initial clips of work to be submitted, unclear if these are read or shared with stakeholders. Based on these clips they contact you. First email - request made for 150 approx word content guide that mirrors links of their existing content (urls included). No mention of how this task pertains to the posted role, just simply that they will pay you for the piece, if it's published. Yet no rate is given. My advice if you are interested in potentially writing a one time guide that "may or may not" lead to additional work. Ask for a rate. Provided the piece, based on the criteria, within the 24 hrs requested. The next morning was told that my style and TOV was not a match for the company at this time. I have no issue with this but felt the process is misleading, I had to ask for clarification about the role and how it was being determined by the task, and the response like the conclusion was vague. There is something counter productive and slightly off here. Also, the only person determining this is one writer. Who when I explained politely that I felt this had been a bit of a waste of my time, was somewhat defensive. Even though I also said I appreciated the honesty and understood that she felt I wasn't a good match, but had a s disconnect to how why I was initially contacted in the first place. My conclusion, they don't read your published clips or ad copy from the first request. If they did they would already have insight into whether you can emulate their style and TOV. Instead I think they scan for name brands and well-known magazine titles (which I have) and contact you based on that. The reason they don't make things crystal clear in the first task request, is because more seasoned writers would probably not bother. It's also the old carrot dangling technique, do this one task unpaid, if we use it you will be paid and their is a possibility for editorial, and other copy gigs. Although, we are going to base all that on a guide you are doing overnight, with no brief, and little direction. Plus, there is one person who will be making this decision, fur multiple applications. Seems like a great company, but they need to be upfront in the posting so they don't come across as dodgy or inexperienced. My only frustration is that this felt like a complete waste of my time, which at best would have concluded in minimal pay for a one time gig.

Interview Questions

Application

I applied online. I interviewed at Appear Here (London, England (UK)) in May 2017.

Interview

At first their staff contacted me via Hired service, then we set up a phone screen interview. The guy made a call with me was nice, he was asking me about my current job and some background skills. After the call, he sent me a home work. The work needs to be done in a few days. But it only took me a few hours to finish it. Then I sent the source code to him, he was impressed. Then I were waiting a month without getting any feedback.

It was a very bad interview ever!

Interview Questions

Application

I applied online. The process took 4+ weeks. I interviewed at Appear Here.

Interview

Probably the most haphazard recruitment process I have ever been through. Expect the whole process for just an intern role to take more than a month and be prepared to chase up your own application. 2 times during the process my application was "forgotten" because of how "busy" they were. They liked to claim it was a "start-up thing" but it was just poor form.

It started off well - I applied online via their website and it was quickly acknowledged that they had received my application. I was told I would hear back in the next few days and sure enough, I was contacted via email to schedule in a "quick chat".

The chat turned out to be a 25-minute, reasonably in-depth phone interview but luckily I was prepared for that. After the phone interview, I was emailed to come into the office a few days later to "meet some of the team" i.e. an interview.

On the day, I met 3 of the team, 2 of which happily admitted to having not even sat down to glance at my CV or cover letter before meeting me. However, all were really bubbly and lovely and the interviews went well – more like a casual chat about myself and learning about the company. The general vibe of the office and the role sounded really interesting and I was genuinely excited about the role at this point.

After the interview, I was emailed a task – to find 10 brands for Oxford Street Topshop and to explain why I chose each one. I was given just 1 day to do this and despite working all day, I managed to send this off in the evening after work and it was promptly acknowledged.

Ironically, despite the demand of it being submitted by the next day, I then did not hear back for 2 weeks.

Usually, I would take this as my application being unsuccessful however, my instinct told me this was not the case as I got really positive vibes from the interview and believed I had completed the task well, so, I decided to email and check up on my application.

I got an email back later in the evening with no explanation as to why there was a 2-week delay, just a quick sorry and then I was invited to come in for a final interview with their new head of the UK the next working day. Luckily I was free despite the incredibly short notice. I just wonder how long it would have taken them to get back to me if I hadn’t been proactive and emailed them myself to chase up. Moreover, I wonder how many good people they have lost by not following up with candidates and keeping them informed of their application - it's common courtesy and I can see from other Glass Door reviews this is quite common.

The final interview was a bit tougher and more technical - I was asked a lot about property and brands, my ideas for and my understanding of the company but nothing was unmanageable. At the end of the interview, I asked bluntly why it had taken so long for them to get back to me - the response was lacklustre, claiming that they didn’t really know why and that it’s just a "start-up thing” promising this time, they would get back to me sooner.

But no. Again, 2 weeks went by and at this point, I really questioned whether I wanted to work at a place that couldn’t professionally handle an application, but I had gotten so far now I just wanted to know what was going on so I duly chased up again via email.

Finally, I got a response briefly apologising again saying that they thought someone had gotten back to me already and that they wouldn’t be progressing my application further because of lack of phone experience, despite them never really bringing this up in the interview or emphasising how important a quality this was to them as I actually have extensive phone experience. However, by this point if I had been offered the job I honestly would have had to really think about whether I actually wanted to work for them, so I was grateful they made the decision for me.

By the end of the process, I was mentally exhausted because on one hand, whenever I was actually in the office interacting with their employees I really loved the company, but when I had to constantly chase up my own application and push it through the process, I realised just how unprofessional and slow at things they could be, therefore making me question what working there must be like. In the interviews I was told that the majority of interns go on to get full time roles and in my head, I could only imagine how tedious and how much chasing you would have to do to progress from an intern role to a full time role if it took so long to process one application.

For what it’s worth, I do believe this is a start-up with a fantastic idea - they really are pushing boundaries and their employees breathe the brand and embody the start-up culture, but they desperately need better admin and a more structured and organised recruitment process which won't reflect badly on the company.

Interview Questions

Interview

CV hand in and portfolio link, with answers to a few questions. The process took a month, and in all I think that was ridiculous. By then most people would have found another job, like me. So I would not recommend this company, especially after all the other negative experiences people have had in the interviews. They seem to be unprofessional in regards to applicant's time, and overlook people with actual experience.

Interview Questions

Application

I applied online. The process took 4+ weeks. I interviewed at Appear Here (London, England (UK)).

Interview

The interview lasted for an hour. The interviewer was very nice, asking fairly standard questions. She asked me to complete two tasks at home which were quite substantial in themselves, subsequently sent to my email. The brief was badly explained, missing attachments, which I needed to carry the task out, the email also containing old, expired links. One was the tasks was to reinvent the copy (format, content and tone etc) of the building listings on their website. I did this along with the other tasks, and heard back from her over a month later saying that "The task wasn't bad,” that the copy should be more "fun, tongue in cheek, irreverent, ideally funny.” Had I been given any indication as to what the tone should have been, I would have definitely approached it in this manner..nothing of the sort was outlined in the very haphazard brief which was sent to me. I felt that the delay of the feedback and the feedback itself was unreasonable and quite disrespectful, possibly indicative of a company that doesn’t really know what it wants.

Application

I applied online. The process took a week. I interviewed at Appear Here (London, England (UK)) in November 2016.

Interview

I arrived and they made me wait in a room to be interviewed. After waiting for 10 minutes, the person in charge came and we had a 25 minutes discussion.
The discussion was about the company culture and if I can fit to the culture.
I got asked lots of questions one after another on my previous jobs, my quality and other personality things.
At the end of the interview, I only stayed in the room and didn't have the occasion to see the office and the employees.

Interview Questions

Application

I applied online. I interviewed at Appear Here (London, England (UK)).

Interview

Interview process was fairly unorganised.

First round was postponed multiple times by the CTO without any sort of explanation. When meeting the team in person, most people seemed to be quite nice - a bit anxious though.
During my meeting with the CEO it started to dawn on me why they are all so nervous. The CEO is an extremely pushy person that asked a lot of job unrelated questions with the sole intend to make me feel uncomfortable.

Overall, pretty easy interviews when it comes to PM related questions.

Interview Questions

Application

I applied online. The process took a week. I interviewed at Appear Here (London, England (UK)) in October 2017.

Interview

I had a friendly and productive chat initially with the recruiter, who suggested while i may not be suitable for the initial role i applied for, they were keen to discuss possible other opportunities within another team of the business, and soon after the phone call arranged an online interview.

However, despite confirming the day before the interview the process for joining the online phone call, on the day of the interview i sat waiting infront of my laptop for approx. 15 minutes with no phone call. I called the recruiter who then informed me that they were actually expecting me in the office. I ended up speaking on the phone to the manager, where it became clear quite quickly that the recruiter didn't actually discuss my CV with them before hand and started asking me about a BD role, when initially I thought i'd be interviewing for a more senior strategic/commercial role.

This ended up being a giant waste of time - i said as much in a far more polite way to the recruiter who's response could be summarised as 'oh well'.

Such a shame that a really interesting company is being let down by
such disorganisation!

Interview Questions

Application

I applied online. I interviewed at Appear Here in February 2019.

Interview

A 30 mins conference call explaining about the company and the role. Discussed my background and expectation of how tech involved the role is. They do not use TensorFlow for example.
Got through to the take home challenge which was to take 3-5 hours but they gave 72hours to complete.

Interview Questions

Application

I applied online. The process took a week. I interviewed at Appear Here (London, England (UK)) in January 2017.

Interview

After applying via the AH website and chasing up the application 4 weeks later directly with the in-house talent scout at the AH London office, I was told the job I had applied for (Brand Accounts) was no longer being offered but Julie asked if I would be interested in being part of the Landlord Partnership team... which I was. A phone interview was set up to take place a few days later - during the phone interview it was obvious that they had forgotten what positions I was applying for and what had been said to me previously via email, but saying this, they made me feel at ease and it was a good talk, with a few probing questions. A few days later my details were passed onto the sales manager for a 2nd telephone interview, this was a very different in that, I was on speaker phone and it was tricky to hear questions, however at the end I was told I would be contacted again by the end of the following week (I'm still waiting to hear back - so guess it didn't go as well as i thought)

Interview Questions