Greenhouse Software

Interview

I was overall very disappointed in the Greenhouse interview process.

I made it through the full interview process which included:

Phone interview with recruiter
Phone interview with the hiring manager
A take home test (the test was challenging but fair, and made sense to the job responsibilities)
An in person interview with various people from other departments, as well as two members from the team

Everything felt fair and fine until the in person interview. Greenhouse seems to pride themselves on the ‘structured’ interview, which should mean that I am not asked the same question twice. This was not the case, I was asked similar if not the same exact question over and over. The point of meeting with people that were not in the department I was interviewing for seemed to be to measure ‘culture fit’. Haven’t they realized that ‘culture fit’ is just a newer term for ‘beer test’, and is out of date and not a best practice? What about culture add? What does culture fit mean anyway to you; if you don’t want to get a beer with me then I don’t get the job, because you feel we’ll be spending a lot of hours together that’s not work related? Long story short, it just sounds like a popularity contest. I get it, I wasn’t popular in high school therefore I’m not a fit for Greenhouse. But perhaps maybe they should consider the value of having a different perspective, dare I say an adult, in the room.
They also seem to pride themselves on diversity, yet every person I spoke to virtually had the same exact resume. Bachelor's degree, one or two internships at a brand name company, and then either directly to here or possibly 1-2 jobs before here with solid tenure. Diversity is more than is what is reported on an EEO report. This is not what I look like on paper. I did not have any internships, and I do not have my Bachelors degree as I was not privileged enough to attend four years of college. The level of unprofessionalism I saw while there was also alarming. This ranged from very revealing attire, as well as one of the persons that interviewed me mentioning how their team member was so attractive that it was distracting during meetings. You’re in HR...how is this person more qualified to work here than me? I also was asked straight out HR questions by those not in the department. How are they going to gauge what is a bad answer and what is a good answer? All of the questions were ‘walk me through a time you did this’, which leads to well, stories. I was later scrutinized and told my answers were too long and that was part of the reason I did not get the job. Yes, I could have answered some of these questions better perhaps but this was very much so meant to be a stressful high pressure interview (as if that’s meant to be a preview of what it’s like working with you??) When I took a moment and said ‘wow great question let me think..’ they responded with a smug attitude, laughing to each other going ‘wow a hard question at Greenhouse, who would have thought…’ Turning to each other, acting as if I’m not there.

It is worth saying that I found the hiring manager professional, kind and a SME. I wish I could say the same for everyone else. I still don’t understand why it was imperative for me to get approval from a software engineer in order to get a job in the HR department.

This may seem like sour grapes, but in the end I think it’s better off I didn’t get the job. If this is a preview of what it would be like to work here, then you’re right - I’m not a good fit.