Dealer.com by Cox Automotive Interview Questions
& Process

It was a pretty straightforward and easy interview process. I met with several managers during the final interview stage. There were no assignments or tasks required as part of the process. However, the scheduling and setup for each step took a while, making the overall timeline quite long.

They went straight into technical questions about measuring SEO and its specific ROI for a dealership. It was very little 'getting to know you' type stuff. The interviewer seemed to confuse SEM and SEO, but I'm not sure if she grasped my point that a good SEM campaign can indirectly help SEO because even if people skip the ads, they see them, which makes them more likely to click your organic listing. They asked about how to evaluate SEO ROI, what SEO is in general, and how to explain it to a dealer. They also asked about prior relationships with dealers. Not many questions were asked about on-site SEO tactics like schema markup or alt-img tags. I was asked to submit a writing sample with only 10 minutes to do it, and there wasn't much direction, just a need for grammar and creativity.

The entire interview process spanned about 4 weeks. It started with a brief phone call with a recruiter. Then, I had a more detailed interview with the hiring manager for the role, focusing on my experience and management capabilities. A few weeks later, the company covered all my travel expenses for a trip to Vermont. There, I went through several interviews with Development VPs and team members, where we discussed management, agility, and team building. The final step involved a face-to-face meeting with my direct manager to get to know the local office and the team.

Applied online and got an email about the salary range to see if it was okay. Then, I had a phone interview with HR, which was just basic get-to-know-you stuff. It was super informal and chill. They set up a second interview with the VP for later that week. The interview got cancelled the day of because of a meeting, and they never rescheduled. A week later, the VP called me by accident, apologized for the mix-up, and offered to reschedule, but we ended up doing the interview then and there. It was a pretty simple interview about my management style and ethics. Really informal and nice. After a few days, they emailed saying they wanted to fly me in for some in-person interviews. I flew out the next week and interviewed with the VP again (even nicer than on the phone), two other team managers, and the HR lead who first reached out. They were really welcoming, putting me up in a nice hotel, giving me a tour, and a great lunch. I was really impressed. Flew home Tuesday, got an offer by Thursday, and accepted a good counter-offer on Friday. Aside from that one communication hiccup and some travel confusion, the whole thing was great. This company is really busy, so things move fast, so some mistakes are bound to happen.