Blue Apron

Application

I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Blue Apron (Richmond, CA) in January 2015.

Interview

Wow! The SoHo office looks fancy and impressive! Too bad that wasn't my experience at all.

The Richmond office emitted a spooky drug den vibe. No, I'm not stating this hyperbolically. My interview was at 5:00, darkness already pressing against the sky. I snapped a photo of the office entrance, sent to some friends, and "drug den?" was the consensus.

I'm not sure to whom the blame belongs here - it's mainly because their corporate office is conjoined to the warehouse. I couldn't believe that I arrived at the right Blue Apron. The parking lot was crawling with mostly semi-trailer delivery trucks. I called and emailed my recruiter a bunch, and he wasn't picking up. A nice warehouse worker who was smoking a joint confirmed that this was it. Parallel to the barbed wire fence, the corporate office entrance was stationed at the side of the warehouse, almost like an architectural afterthought. The stairs were open between steps and aged neglectfully, then led me to one of the grayest doors I've ever seen.

I was already running 15 minutes late from confirming and finding the address. I mentioned my difficulty in finding the office to my interviewer, and she said: "Oh yeah, we always allow 15-20 minutes for the candidate to find our office, it's pretty much expected." I was disturbed to hear this - why would you treat company time and the candidate's time so flippantly? Not only is this a mutual time waster, but also bestowing more stress to the candidate than is necessary. All because...you don't want to crank out 2-3 lines of directions in the interview invitation email, for fear that you may put candidates off because of the office's appearance?

The interview itself was a bit better - I met with the national recruiter and then a hiring manager. The conversation wasn't anything special. There weren't any hard-hitting questions.

Anywho, I'm going to wrap this up, because it's getting too wordy - but Blue Apron, at least the one in California, doesn't consider or care about candidate experience. There was no follow-up after my interview, after all the trouble I went through of getting there. All's fair in the recruiting game, AS LONG AS you always follow up. I'm a good sport about rejection based on that principle...but they never followed up, which I absolutely hate. Who even likes being left in the lurch like that, anyway?

During my job search, Blue Apron had to be my most bizarre interview yet. The experience added new definition to my having "seen it all."