I was invited to interview for a product design summer intern position. HR told me that I would have two, back to back 45 minute interviews and that they would make the hiring decision based off that. The interviews were conducted over Skype.
Both interviewers were unprepared and out of the loop– they didn’t know anything about the intern hiring process and hadn’t been given any interview training.
My first interviewer was nice– they had done their research, looked at my portfolio, and had relevant questions to ask me. The interview was very casual and relaxed and felt more like a friendly conversation.
I’m fairly certain that my second interviewer was high out of their mind. The first thing they told me was that they had “no idea” what they were doing and that they had never conducted an interview before. They kept looking all around the room, waving to people in the background, and spacing out of our conversation. They basically just had me ramble on about some of my past projects (they hadn’t bothered to look at my resume or any of my work beforehand). The interview felt clumsy, awkward, and unprofessional.
By the end of the two interviews I didn’t really feel like Uber was a place that I would fit in or enjoy working. I got the impression that the company was extremely large, disjointed, and didn’t know how to handle itself.
Advice to management: Take the time to train your interviewers and provide them with more details about the hiring process. Make sure that they’re capable of presenting your company in a positive light.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Uber (San Francisco, CA) in Jan 2016
Interview
I never really wanted to work here but I had a very persistent recruiter. We had a great chat so I figured I'd give it a whirl. The next step was another phone call with a team lead on driver growth and the call was pretty disastrous -- no chemistry, boring problems, blindsided by obscure data questions, etc. I was pretty much just thinking "get me out of here" the entire time which probably explains why I was given the run-around "I'd like you to chat with another team member" but no follow-up. I later heard back from the original recruiter and she said that the call went great but they'd like to recommend me for another team. I politely declined and moved on with life.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
While presenting a portfolio project: How did you utilize data to guide your design decisions?
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Uber (San Francisco, CA) in Dec 2015
Interview
A friend submitted a referral and I was contacted by a recruiter that same day. We had brief phone conversation about my background and a few days later a 45 minute video interview was scheduled with one of the design managers. Later that day another recruiter got back to me saying they'd like to meet me for an onsite interview the following week.
The onsite interview was six hours long with nine different people, beginning with a 45 minute portfolio presentation to a small group. Everyone was extremely sharp, understanding, and transparent.
I heard back the next day with an enthusiastic offer. The recruiter was incredible throughout the entire process. She was supportive, transparent, and quick to answer all of my questions. Great experience overall.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design a UI for a location-based experimentation platform.