I was referred by an employee. There were 4 different stages to the interview process: a recruiter call, a HackerRank coding assessment, a phone interview with an Engineering Manager, and an on-site interview.
The recruiter call was straightforward; mainly going over my experience, with the recruiter also talking about HomeAdvisor as a company. The HackerRank coding assessment was a take-home assignment with 6 questions, the requirement being that at least one of them is completed. I completed 2 of the 6 questions (due to time constraints with my current job), but hope that didn’t adversely affect their decision in any way. The Engineering Manager phone screen was more technical, but primarily were questions based on my experience.
The on-site was divided in 4 segments - culture, code review (reviewing my HackerRank submission), system design, and leadership (since I was interviewing for a manager position). I struggled with the system design portion, but felt good about the on-site aside from that. During the leadership portion of the interview, I got the vibe that the interviewer didn’t like me, but brushed it off since their questions weren’t difficult to answer.
They got back to me about a week after I interviewed to turn me down by saying they were somehow considering me for a Mid-Level Developer role that they didn’t have available anyway, hence the delay in response. As someone who is currently a senior level engineer and manager at their current company, and was interviewing for a senior level role and manager at HomeAdvisor, I found this reasoning absurd.
HomeAdvisor should consider asking candidates if they’d be okay with being considered for a lower level position prior to starting the interview process. If you are going to be transparent about something from the interview process, at least give some feedback on what candidates could improve. It would be one thing if a Mid-Level role was available and offered to me (which would still be appalling), but to tell a current senior engineer/manager that they were being considered for a Mid-Level role that wasn’t even available just seems like an unnecessary jab at someone’s level of experience.
In addition to this, they delayed sending me my reimbursement for the on-site interview. I understand that this process was a sunk cost for them, but it was a considerable time investment for me as well, so to delay it (amongst other complaints) didn’t give me a good impression of their interview process and the company as a whole.
HomeAdvisor needs to learn to treat all candidates with respect. Otherwise, they’ll miss out on current and potential top candidates.
