Full Disclosure – I didn’t get the job I interviewed for.
But that’s not why I’m writing this review. I’m writing it so that others who may consider interviewing here have a bit of insight before they step into the place.
First thing you should think about is this – they’re a Boulder-based marketing agency that touts themselves as “SEO Specialists.” However, a simple search for the keyword “Boulder SEO” doesn’t yield an organic result for this company until page 5, which should be your first red flag.
Before being invited for an in-person interview, I was screened by the owner by phone where I was asked a handful of pedestrian marketing questions that I guess he thought were difficult. I passed that test with flying colors, and was invited for the in-person interview.
I showed up early, waited for the owner to show up, and was taken to a conference room with the owner, a girl who was fetus-aged, and a the digital marketing manager who had the thousand yard stare like he’d either just stepped out of a warzone or was coming down from a rager the night before.
Nothing unusual here. The owner has this sort of rich guy swagger thing going on, which is off-putting, but that’s nothing too unusual in the marketing world. He was very generous with his employees in terms of allowing them the chance to ask me questions. The girl had more questions that the manager, and they focused on the usual things you might expect – content creation, ppc, those sorts of things.
More disclosure – my background is not in content creation, per se. But I didn’t submit my resume for a content creation position, so why I was asked to show a content portfolio and being asked questions about that seemed odd, but I rolled with it anyway.
The owner was mostly quiet through the process. I figured he was just giving his staff a chance to practice interviewing since he’d already spoken to me at length over the phone. He just sat slouched in his chair, looking disinterested and unengaged. Towards the end of the interview, however, he decided to throw me a curve ball and presented to me a riddle to solve:
“You’re standing on the surface of the Earth. You walk one mile south, one mile west and one mile north. You end up exactly where you started. Where are you?” To be honest, I really, really suck at riddles. Especially on the spot in an interview. But I was honest. I simply said “I don’t know the answer to that. But I’ll get back to you.” Which honestly, as someone who has been in management for years, I would appreciate an answer like that from an employee. The willingness to do some research and come back to you, is what most managers would want from an employee.
That was pretty much the nail in the coffin in the interview. You could feel the energy drain from the room and the owner wrapped things up real quick then and sent me on my way. Not telling me whether I’d been rejected or not. I would find that out a few days later. By the way, regarding the riddle – there are two answers – 1) the north pole or 2) near the south pole. However, as I’m sure you’ve guessed – the point isn’t that you get the correct answer. Few people do. The point is that the interviewer wants to see how you approach problem solving. And in my case, saying that I’d look into it, was likely a failure.
Looking around the place, there were tons of kids. Early twenties. Which likely means two things – low pay and low levels of experience. Can you call yourself an expert if your staff is comprised mostly of intern-aged kids? That’s not for me to say, I guess. But I wouldn’t hire them if I knew that. And as far as the actual work environment goes, it’s a beautiful office space. Looks very comfortable. And looks set up with the intent of providing a morale-boosting workspace. The cliched ping pong table is a feature, the sleek furniture another. However, as a few of the other reviews seem to indicate, this may all be smoke and mirrors. I would urge you to read those reviews as well (discarding, of course, the ones that are obviously there for ass-kissing purposes), and do your own research into this company before agreeing to an interview. One of the tell-tale signs of high turnover rate and unhappy employees is that they are ALWAYS hiring. Red flag for an agency this small. Best of luck to everyone in their job hunt!
