I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at PartnerStack (Toronto, ON) in May 2022
Interview
HR phone screening which took 25 minutes
Meeting with Engineering director which took 45 minutes mostly general conversation.
Technical 1.5 hour of interview with 2 senior engineers. General conversation plus technical detail questions
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Describe your experience and what is related with the position?
The hiring process was annoyingly long. First it was a phone call and then followed with a coding challenge. Then I was given a questioner regarding the coding challenge and after I answered it I was requested for an interview a week later.
The whole process between the phone call interview to the final interview was almost a month. I was told that there will be further questions and remarks on my questioner answers during the final interview, but to my surprise the interviewer told me he didn't bother reading my answers. The interview was easy, and they said they liked me but requested 48 hours to answer. I sent them a thank you email the following day, and when I didn't hear from them for almost a week I sent a follow up email. They said they needed a few more days. A week later still no reply, and this time they didn't answer my second follow up email. I gave it another week and only then did they said they had to go with a more experienced person for the role, which is totally fine, I just think it's unprofessional after someone has invested so much time in this process to be denied a proper answer in hope they just stop sending follow up emails.
There's just an unprofessional vibe about the way this team handled it, especially for a company that is all about creating connections.
First thank you for your candour and taking this time to write and publish this feedback. Being responsive and understanding when receiving feedback is core to who we are at PartnerStack. The best way to grow and improve it to listen and respond to feedback like yours.
I also want to say I agree with you. The interview process we used to have at PartnerStack took too long and did not put our best foot forward. The time it took from first contact to decision was far too long. We are all about creating connections and our interview process did not show that off.
The team identified the interview process was not good enough and we committed to improve it. I am happy to say we made major positive changes to the interview process in engineering. The new process intends to set us apart in the candidates eyes, allow us to hire at pace, minimize bias, puts diversity first and involves the team early and often. We now strive to ensure the candidate has a yes/no answer within 7 days for first contact. We don't have a lengthy code challenge anymore and at every step we focus on treating our candidates with extreme respect. We know the process is as much about the candidate assessing us as it is us assessing the candidate.
The PartnerStack hiring process is not perfect but it's way better now than what you experienced. We are a growing startup and we strive to exceed expectations in everything we do. We sometimes get it wrong and in your case it sounds like we did.
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