Interview Process

Currently sitting at SFO airport, I am waiting to board my flight back to Atlanta. With this, it marks the end of my job search phase aka what will i do after i graduate.
During the last 2-3 months, i have given interviews with many companies, got some rejects and some accepts. This post is dedicated to all companies who interviewed me. And to take it the next step, i am going to rank them w.r.t to my experience. Sounds pretentious, huh? Well, there are some drawbacks of watching Colbert report everyday and this is one of them. So without waiting, lets begin:
Parameters considered to derive ranks below are : (a)Quality of interviews (b) Logistics (Transport, food etc) (c) Overall interview day experience (d) Misc , wherever applicable.

1. Microsoft: Without a doubt, giving interviews at Ms deserves rank 1. The experience is just awesome. I do not think there is any company out there which spends more than ms to interview its people. One just needs to clear a simple (30 min) round to get a ticket to Seattle and after that its a fun trip. While interviews are msft are no longer the best ( i mean they are not the most difficult to crack) but in all other departments, msft is spot on. In addition to a budget of 75$ per day, transport excluded, they even pay for sight seeing. Ofcourse, my trip gets exponentially magnified because of my friends there.

2. I..M....O.: Can't write their full name as they must have used a blog alert. A small startup in Palo Alto, they had very good interviews. One of their innovation was they did not asked to write code on white board; instead they gave me a laptop hooked with a projector. So while i was writing code, they were looking at the projector as if some movie was going on. In addition, they give a Amazon voucher to all their candidates :), thats why i have a misc category above :)

3. Google: Google has to go a long way to catch up with microsoft in this regard. Their interview questions are at par with ms ones but they lack in providing proper logistics. It was good but not complete. One thing that struck me was that Googlers couldnt stop boasting about themselves. So you have got 19 cafes, 3-4 gyms, massage facilities, shuttle services with internet for transport, do not disclose it to me until i get an offer. This would be a huge disappointment for those who get a reject. (Disclosure: My google iview result is not out yet).

4. C-a-u-s-e-s: Another startup based in Berkley, CA, their interview questions were very very good. Each startup has some innovation in their interview process. In this case, their phone interview had a rapid fire round to test overall knowledge. In onsite interview, i was asked some really interesting, never heard before and unique questions. Plus the team was also very good.

5. R-a-p-l-e-a-f: This is again a startup from SF. It lies at an extreme end of interview process. People say that their mantra is "No false positives" and in order to ensure that they go a long distance. My iview process started with a written test, followed by a telephonic interview, followed by another telephonic interview after which they asked me to develop BlackJack game in Ruby. After this, i had another telephonic iview. Then, after 4 months, i was called on-site where i had to give a presentation on some tech topic of my choice. After the presentation, i had 6 tech interviews. There was also an HR interview somewhere in the day. The questions they asked were good but dude, if you ask me a prob question after 8 hrs of interviews and presentations, i am in no position to think at all. Their logistics were decent given the fact that they are a startup. They can no longer have msft like budgets. Gone are those dot come bubble days!

6. B-l-o-o-m-b-e-r-g.: One telephonic and three tech interviews followed by one HR. All happened at tech campus. So cant grade on logistics, however they did offer me to visit their NY office after giving an offer. But very sub-standard questions in interviews and that HR lady was getting on my nerves.

7. Rest: C-i-t-a-d-e-l, H-i-v-e-F-i-r-e. O-o-y-a-a-l-a: Insufficient data to give concrete results. There is only one reason why the data is insufficient :) . And to be honest, i agree that for some the fault is mine but for the some the fault is at their end as well.


I really had hoped to give Apple and Amazon interviews just for the sake of it. Well Apple will never call me but Amazon, you let me down. Finally, i urge everyone to take msft interview, even if you do not intend to work there. Its an experience. A learning experience that teaches how rich companies spend; what lavish expenditure means.


And just to compare it with Indian interview process, its almost the same. Well,(for most cases) there were no onsite interviews for freshers as companies directly visited the campus, but the questions asked were almost the same. I can never forget my Trilogy interview. It was done inside a hotel room with all interviewers having one room. We assembled in another room, all interviewees, to wait for our turn. It was a great experience. May be because trilogy was my first love when it comes to job :)