An interview process that hurt.
I put in around 150 hours of work preparing. I would call myself very astute. I have finished college with 3.7 cumulative GPA, having actively sought out and taken the toughest finance, economic, and business courses available to me. I spent those hours productively.
1st thing I got was the Tableau Qualified Associate Certification. Tableau recommends taking "Fundamentals and Advanced courses” $1390 each; and 5+ months of Desktop experience. Instead I studied on my own spending about 60 hours using the prep guide. I spent $250 taking the test and got a 92% needing 75% to pass. I gained skills in Tableau equivalent to someone who has used the program for 5+ months in a fraction of the time.
2nd thing - give a great product demo. I spent about 45 hours prepping. I found the data set that I wanted then added a few more columns to make the presentation more convincing. I spent 5 hours prepping this data. The rest of the time was spent on researching the value proposition of Tableau software, coming up the dashboard I wanted and playing around with the data for hours until it was perfect. I practiced the demo recording myself and getting feedback from my girlfriend.
Finally I studied the competitors and other materials that interested me such as information design. I read Stephen Few's best practices book "Informational Dashboard Design" (great book btw!) and spent time trying their competitor, Qlikview. I also read the white papers from Tableau to achieve the best marketing tactics and read books outlining best practices of selling software.
The interview process. 3 rounds and a homework assignment. The recruiter was disorganized promising to follow up at a certain period of time, but usually didn't. She messed up scheduling my second interview so the day I expected to talk to the manager she called with excuses and no apology.
The final interview was telling of Tableau and its "culture". I gave a great demo showing the features of the software that also told an interesting journey of a movie producer answering most or all of the questions about the technical features of the software. There were questions that I couldn't answer outright, but I promised that I would look into it and follow up after the demo. Overall I nailed the demo: I showed the value of the software and kept it interesting and fun.
I interviewed with 4 people, 30 minutes each. One manager asked me the same question because the topic interested to him, but in my opinion unnecessary in relation. Another manager really liked my demo and we talked about information best practices, generally good impression of the guy. The third manager, who was I believe going to be my boss, drilled me with questions. One question was if I can work well with others. I gave an example of when I had a hard time working with others, but said I went through 6 months of life coaching and it's a skill that I’ve improved. He kept saying that not everyone at Tableau is smart, how are you going to work with them? This really confused me because the impression I got from other managers and current employees who I've spoken mostly directly quoted that "working with smart and motivated people” would be a benefit of working at Tableau.
He decides to give me a statistic puzzle to test if I can explain things well, which I successfully solved (!) while verbalizing my thought process. This surprised me because I haven't taken statistics in a long time. I told this excitement to him, and he replied “You don't have to know statistics even my brother who is an english major can do this it's just logic” he said in a very curt tone. Putting me down for solving the puzzle successfully and my excitement for it? At that point, the purpose isn't to test my explanation skills because there wasn't any comment of that from him regarding it. It was a power trip for him. At the end of the interview he gets up and says "So you don't work well with others" as a hostile departing shot he hurriedly leaves but I catch him quickly before he rushes out to give him a handshake and thank him for is time. It seems to me that he is the one who doesn't work well with others.
I heard back from the day after. My recruiter let me know that they will not be offering me the job. I was very shocked to hear this. I asked her if Tableau had some feedback, she says no. Now I’m left recovering from the confusion and injustice I feel about my experience. I feel like I was the perfect candidate: I enjoy working with data, I'm excited at what Tableau has to offer to companies, and I was extremely prepared and motivated to do what's necessary to learn the business to help people. But I found out recently that that's not all you need. Which really confuses and hurts me. I will not be pursuing any other opportunities with Tableau in the future. I really put sweat, tears, money, and my heart out there and I was rejected without an ounce of reason.