Gusto Interview Questions
& Process

I was supposed to have a recruiter call, but they emailed me 10 minutes late saying they were in an urgent meeting. We rescheduled for the next Friday, but again, no call. Fifteen minutes after the scheduled time, I got an email saying the recruiter had the flu. They asked for my availability for Monday, and I gave them a six-hour window. The confirmation email was for a time outside of that window, but at least the recruiter called this time. It was a standard recruiter screen and seemed fine. The recruiter said they'd meet with the hiring team in a few days and get back to me by the end of the week. I followed up early the next week without a response, and then again the week after that. I didn't get a response to my second follow-up, but the day after, I got a generic rejection email from Gusto. The recruiter's general incompetence made me question if my application even reached the right person. I found the hiring manager on LinkedIn and messaged him directly. He confirmed my resume got to him but said he probably 'screened it out quickly' because I didn't list the tech stack for each role, making it unclear if I had Rails experience. Ruby and Rails are in my skills section, and my cover letter mentioned them, but he apparently didn't read it and expected 'Ruby on Rails' to be all over my resume. The job seemed interesting, but given the negative interactions, I'm not upset about not getting it.

The process moved quickly and people seemed friendly, which is a pro. However, I didn't enjoy the interview experience. The first round was a gauntlet of three interviews that ate up an entire day. I was asked a lot about AI proficiency with certain tools, even though those tools weren't mentioned in the job description. It would have been fair to mention the tools they were looking for. The most off-putting part was how much they kept mentioning how much they loved the last guy in the position. It felt like they were looking for a unicorn, but with a low Glassdoor score, they need to lower their expectations.

My interview for the Dedicated Service Advisor role at Gusto was really great. Everyone, from the recruiter to the interviewers, made me feel really welcomed and valued. They created a supportive atmosphere that felt more like working together than an interview. They paid attention to my answers, talked about my experiences, and just made me feel like a real person throughout. It was honestly the best interview I've ever had and really showed Gusto's team culture, making me even more excited to join.

I was referred by the Hiring Manager to recruitment after I messaged him regarding a LinkedIn post he made about the position. He had a recruiter reach out and she scheduled a phone screen. She did not call me at the scheduled time and I emailed her and asked if there was an issue and she rescheduled. She called me and after a quick discussion of my background-fully qualified-she said she was happy to pass me on to the next stage, which would be the final stage. I truly thought I had this in the bag bc of the HM referral, the need to hire for a specific background and time zone (which I met/had both) and the need to fill multiple seats bc of the new HR product launch. I was perfectly qualified, according to all of my next FOUR interviewers. The HM told me during the interview that we had perfect alignment. All told, I probably spent 10 hours prepping or meeting with the interviewers. The HM ghosted me after I sent a thank you email and I got an email rejection after prompting him once more for an update. Looking back I can see that the way the interviews were held shows distrust in the organization. I also feel there was a potential age bias present. There were people interviewing me that had only been working there for 4 months. That’s at least…interesting. They read from a script and one of my interviewers was in a coffee shop and I could barely hear him the whole time. At first I was upset about not getting an offer, but looking back and reading more here made me realize that I probably dodged a bullet bc hindsight being 20/20, the process was giving disorganized startup culture-which, for as long as they have been in business, should NOT be the case. I will say that everyone in the process was “nice” to me, but it leaves you feeling deceived when some of the things they said indicated that I would be hired and then you get an email instead of another “nice” conversation with a recruiter or the HM. I’d recommend that the executives understand that clear is kind and utilize some different approaches to show that they value people’s time and their own values that they ask you to talk about in each interview. I don’t appreciate ego and that was mentioned multiple times by the interviewers as well-that at Gusto, everyone leaves their ego at the door and embraces empathy. Apparently, that doesn’t hold completely true in the hiring process or at least it didn’t for me.