Applied via LinkedIn, got set up quickly for any interview with the CEO. He's a young guy and talks a lot. The interview was very conversational and we chatted way past the 30 minutes alotted. Was told he's set me up with a follow-up interview with CMO but got ghosted.
Definitely a few red flags came up. First one: CEO is relatively new and comes from private equity. Second one: He fired the entire marketing team as one of his first tasks as CEO. The team was big, like 15 people strong and had been with the company for a long time. He said they were immature and weren't doing anything to move the needle on sales.
As someone who's felt the chaos of a private equity take over before, I'd warn any prospects to stay far away from this company. They seem unprofessional, the CSuite is all over the place and don't seem able or willing to follow-up with their interview candidates (which says a lot just by itself).
In terms of the questions, he went through each of my past jobs, asked who my boss was, and how they'd describe me as a worker. It felt like a sneaky way to get the names of my references, which I wasn't comfortable with at this stage in the interview process.
My recommendation? Stay far away.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What's the name of your last boss and how would they describe you.
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Plan-It Geo (New York, NY) in May 2023
Interview
I interviewed with a millenial woman via video. She asked the usual interview type questions and asked why I wanted to work there, what interest I had in urban forests, etc. I thought the interview went well, and I actually sent her a bunch of ideas about how to set up her community, social media calendar ideas, and feedback about the software she picked. Then she ghosted me. Yep, she ghosted me. I tried to follow up and then weeks later she sends me a mercy email telling me she picked somebody else. Applying and interviewing with these people was a total waste of time. I do not recommend that you bother unless you want to go through the same thing. I feel like I dodged a bullet, as I can't imagine working for someone like that, it would have been awful. Best to avoid this company or have your time wasted like I did.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me about why you are interested in urban forestry? I thought this was a dumb question because I was interested in the job and could learn what I needed about urban forestry quite easily. One quick prompt of chatGPT and you get a ton of info on it.
