After two interviews with Zenefits recently, I want to share my experience here.
Initially, I interviewed for a senior SDE position. Due to lack of experience, I didn’t get an offer although I received feedback that I have very strong coding skills. This was appropriate because they were looking for a senior Engineer with way more experience but I only have 2-3 yrs of industry experience.
Last week the company invited me to interview for a junior SDE position. I was looking forward to it based on my first experience. However, they did not offer me the position. This time they claimed that my primary motivation to work at Zenefits is $$$, I mentioned work-life balance, plus a vague “communication problem”. If I have a communication problem, why did you interview me twice? The second hiring manager should have already seen the feedback from my first interview. Also, I did not ask them to explain or repeat any questions over and over during the interview. I don’t understand what the communication problem could be. Maybe it’s themselves who have communication issues. If the hiring manager wants to hire a native speaker, then go ahead and please don’t waste time of other candidates. On top of that, who doesn’t want a work/life balance and $$$? Would you like to hire someone who says that he wants to work for you 12 hours every day without any pay? In addition, I don’t think I focused excessively on the salary expectation in the interview process.
The reasons they failed me during the second interview do not seem plausible, since they asked me similar background questions from previous interview and I gave nearly identical answers. The hiring manager has already read the feedback from the first interview, and why the communication problem only showed up at this time?
Overall, I can’t complain about the experience of my first interview, but the feedback of the second interview definitely feels biased. Please respect your candidates or at least provide objective feedback.
