Eleven Software

Eleven Software Interviews

1. Aug 24, 2022

   Technical Writer Interview

   Anonymous Employee in United States

   No Offer

   Neutral Experience

   Average Interview

   Application

   I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Eleven Software (United States) in Aug 2022

   Interview

   Eleven has a very lengthy and personal interview process. Over the course of a few weeks, I had 5 different interviews. There was a manager interview, a HR interview, an engineer panel interview, a product panel interview, and a leadership panel interview.
   
   They were extremely respectful and considerate of my time throughout the whole process. I never was left wondering how I did or whether or not I'd hear back. After every step, I would get quick and useful feedback. This was such a breath of fresh air compared to most companies.
   
   Another thing that really set them apart was the way they cared about diversity and inclusion. During every interview, people gave thoughtful and reasonable answers around that. There were also many questions about diversity and it's clear to me they do more than just talk about it.
   
   With that being said, some of the questions felt a bit inappropriate and felt like it wouldn't actually foster a very diverse organization. For example, one of the questions I was asked was, "What are you doing in your community to empower diversity and inclusion?" It felt like if you weren't an activist, then the company wouldn't want you.
   
   Likewise, there were many questions digging into my personal life such as what do I do for fun outside of work, what goals have I recently accomplished outside of work, why is there a gap in my resume, etc. These, again, felt inappropriate to ask in an interview as it seems like this would bias them against people who have different goals or interests than they do. During one of my interviews, it seemed like one person in the panel wasn't fond of one of my answers to these types of questions and cut it off early -- which felt disrespectful and awkward.
   
   Another frustrating thing was the reference requests. At most places, this is done as a final step -- not as a way to compare the candidates. At Eleven, not only were there way more questions to fill out than at most places, but it's done in a way to compare candidates. Because of that, my references spent a significant amount of time filling out answers for me to be rejected for reasons completely unrelated to their responses.
   
   Aside from those issues, though, the process was much better than at most places I've interviewed. I got useful feedback at the end of the process that I'm able to learn and grow from. Most of the people I talked to were friendly and answered my questions to the best of their abilities. I wasn't tasked with doing any ridiculous take home assignment or going out of my way to do some work for them. I felt like I was treated with respect and like I was a real person rather than just a cog in the machine.
   
   I'd still consider applying to them again in the future.
   

   Interview

   Q: What are you doing in your community to empower diversity and inclusion? Q: Tell me about a time when you were given a project without much direction or guidance. How did you handle that? Q: How would you approach coming into a place without a style guide for writing? Q: What are your experiences with API docs? What do you look for in them? How would you approach making those?

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