I applied online. The process took 6 weeks. I interviewed at Pocket Gems
Interview
WORST INTERVIEW PROCESS EVER!! DO NOT APPLY! I have interviewed with hundreds of companies throughout my career and this was hands down the most unprofessional and unorganized recruitment process I've experienced. And I went through the same issues with them twice within a few years, so it wasn't just a one-off problem.
They require you to complete a fairly time-intensive project before you're even allowed to speak with anyone about the role. The first time I applied, I was rejected after submitting my project, with no opportunity for even a phone interview. The 2nd time I completed the same project, I did get through to at least having a phone interview, but it was with very junior team members who obviously had no experience in interviewing and were unable to answer several questions I asked about the company. Furthermore, the way they described the flat org structure sounded more like a negative rather than a positive factor.
If I had the opportunity to speak with someone at the beginning of the process, I would have realized that I was not interested in the company and the role, instead of wasting my time on a silly project. Finally, after the multi-step process, they simply send out a form rejection letter, which I find to be very unprofessional.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Even after proving my analytical skills via the assignment, I was still asked a stupid SAT-type calculation question during the phone interview, which would prove nothing about one's ability to do the job, only that you are quick with calculations.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 5 weeks. I interviewed at Pocket Gems (San Francisco, CA) in Mar 2017
Interview
The the job description mentioned math and data analysis, but no questions about those were asked. It was like I was taking an interview for channel manager, which I have limited experience at.
So forget about the qualification of the job, since they are looking for someone with exact years of exp and exact skills in channel marketing and management. If you use other skill sets to finish the job they might not be happy.
It does not matter that you built effective marketing campaigns with innovative machine learning methods or conducted campaign optimization with solid model. The performance evaluation and analytics parts are just there to make the job look fancy.
The onsite interview lasted for FIVE hours and totally SEVEN people came in the room and talked to me one by one. People are nice but most of them do not have deep understanding about how data mining and machine learning would be applied in marketing campaign.
They do not understand "build regression model to evaluate variables' relationship with LTV, assuming ranking is one of the variables", but they know "we can use ranking information to figure out the total LTV of competing products".
The assumption here is that "we know our ranking and our LTV, and we figure out the pattern between these two.", but the question asked is full of ambiguity and over-simplicity:"estimate LTV with ranking information".
If you want to explore more application of machine learning in digital marketing, this would not be the right position and right firm.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Partner made a same mistake twice, what would you do?
