A Guide to Our Company’s Completely Reasonable Interview Process

The Believer Magazine

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Dear Candidate,

Thank you for your application. Should we move forward, here are the stages you can expect to encounter as you advance during a typical interview process with our team:

Fifteen-minute introductory phone call with the recruiter
Thirty-minute Zoom interview with the hiring manager to discuss strengths, weaknesses, and the last thing you binged on Netflix
Unpaid test requiring three months of work to be completed in seventy-two hours
Two-week pause for suspense
Enthusiastic “circle back” email from our recruiter in which they almost get your name right but not quite
On-site tailoring session to measure your bandwidth
Astrological reading to see whether your star sign aligns with our company’s north star
One-on-one with the hiring manager to confirm their first impression of you wasn’t influenced by their mood, phases of the moon, or an argument they had with their mother
Panel interview to assess your willingness to collaborate, accept feedback, and share the pasta salad you brought for lunch
Unpaid personal essay on “what my work family means to me”
Quick “touch base” with two assistants and a karaoke machine to see if you’d be fun at holiday parties
On-site assessment at your local grocery store to see how you compare apples to apples, peel back the onion, and turn a lemon into lemonade
Dietary survey to see how you’d tolerate Potluck Tuesdays
Unpaid focus group with six average Americans from Des Moines to see if they think you’d be a good cultural fit
Talent competition (location TBA)
Online screening to match with a work wife or husband
TSA emotional baggage check (regional travel roles only)
Unpaid test to create an irreverent Slack emoji that is funny enough to make our team laugh but not so funny that it offends our CEO
Three-week pause while our finance department pretends we can’t afford you
Final call with our recruiter to ensure this won’t be the worst decision they’ve ever made
Offer sent via DocuSign, or via DoorDash with your Thai delivery
Google survey to provide feedback on our interview process
Self-evaluation on how you could have made this process more seamless for everyone