BeenVerified posted a call for "entrepreneurial" remote workers who had a range of skill sets. There was not a set job title that one would be applying for, but rather a set of personality traits and skill sets that the company was seeking. I applied online through Glassdoor in December 2018, and received a request for a phone interview via e-mail in February of 2019.
My first interview was scheduled for February 15 in the afternoon with an HR rep. I was literally told less than 5 minutes before the interview that they needed to reschedule.
The interview was rescheduled to later in the month, incidentally when I was traveling. I made the time with my schedule to accommodate their request.
The phone interview took about 30-40 minutes. It became clear that there was not a specific role that I was applying for, but the phone interview was to gauge my skill set and tell me about their different projects/products.
I was asked by the HR rep if I had ever heard of "product management", and I told the her that I had not, but had a strong project management background specific to marketing and event logistics. She explained what "product management" entailed, and assured me this was the best fit for my skills with their organization.
I inquired if there were opportunities within their marketing department, and was assured "product management" made the most sense. I was then invited to the second round of the interview, a "fun challenge" that involved research and preparing a presentation for their consideration.
I was told that there were no right or wrong answers, but the challenge was to help them see how my brain worked through a problem. I was then emailed a one-page PDF outlining the work they wanted prepared. There were no guidelines as to the format in which they wanted it presented (.PDF, PowerPoint, etc.).
The "fun challenge" (their words) equated into about 8 hours of work for me. The challenge was to pick one of three websites to analyze and make prescriptions on how user experience could be improved while increasing revenue.
I thoroughly researched the website that I chose, and made thoughtful suggestions on how improving accessibility and utilizing more intelligent machine learning could increase membership, create press opportunities, and put the website on the cutting edge of AI.
One of the questions posed to me was how I would select and manage my developer team for feature roll-outs. Because my background is in project management, not product management, and I have never had experience on a development team, I felt ill-equipped despite my strategic approach to tackeling this project.
I had communicated this concern in my verbal interview, but my concerns ahead of this second round were disregarded. I did the best job that I could with what direction I was provided with, but received a terse, "Thanks, but we are moving forward with people that are better qualified for this position" a day after.
I can understand and appreciate the need to pick the best of the best, especially for a remote position. My concern is that their job listing actively sought out founders of their own companies and entrepreneurs whose time and creative energy is at a premium to perform what I felt like was free research work. My other concern is that I expressed uneasiness about moving to a second round of interviewing with a job role that I never heard of, let alone actively had on my resume. If I had applied for a marketing position as I had requested, I would have felt better about giving it my best and hearing no.
I feel that the HR department did not give me an opportunity to successfully showcase my abilities, and burnt my time without clarity as to what I would actually be interviewing for. The last-minute cancellation was also a rather unfortunate touch to the overall experience.
