I was invited to the telephone interview which took place via Google Hangouts and I was assessed by a lady who was obviously eating something and having separate conversations while talking to me. Aside from that, it was pretty much a regular phone assessment which lasted for about 20 minutes.
The assessment email came about a week later on Christmas eve, which also happened to be a Saturday, so I did not get to see it until the following Monday, just over 24 hours to the given deadline. The assessment was to use a media format of my choice to depict my skills and experience. Since my format of choice was video, specifically 3D animation, it was not possible to do the required modelling and rendering in the given time frame, so I used a workaround to animate the video in 2D instead, which took the best part of 4 hours. Rendering and post production took a further 6 hours of work, and I submitted the assessment just over 12 hours to the deadline. I got an automated out of office response from the hiring manager.
And that was the last I heard from anyone at Andela.
Over the next two weeks, I sent follow-up emails to the HR team and the hiring manager, but nobody deemed it fit to acknowledge receipt of the mails. Using YouTube analytics on my channel back end, I saw that the video assessment had been viewed at locations in California, New York and Lagos, yet no one saw it necessary to let me know if it was no longer under consideration. The time, effort and personal expense put into completing their assessment was apparently not worthy even of a stock response.
This is the behaviour, not of an earth changing startup, but of an African flavoured BPO sweatshop that happens to have really good PR. I wish I could say I was surprised.