Huffington Post Interview Questions
& Process

We started with a quick call with a senior editor. We talked about media habits, trending news, career aspirations, and how to craft effective headlines. Next, there was an editorial test where I had to write two articles in an hour, focusing on accuracy and proper sourcing. This was followed by a face-to-face interview in the newsroom; I had to identify about 50 well-known people to gauge my political and cultural knowledge. They also assessed if I'd fit the HuffPost culture. The last step was an interview with Arianna Huffington.

I got referred in and a recruiter hit me up a couple days after. First, I chatted with them on the phone, then I got an edit test. After I sent that in, I met another editor in person at the NY office. A few days later, a higher-up on the masthead wanted to meet me too, also in person at the NY office. It all went great, the team was super nice. The phone and first in-person interviews were more technical, but the last one was more chill, just getting to know each other. It was a pretty standard process, just took a bit of time to get an answer, maybe a couple weeks, but they were good about keeping me in the loop.

A recruiter reached out on LinkedIn. I mentioned I wasn't interested in the specific dev role but some PM jobs looked good. The hiring manager said I'd be considered for those too but I should interview for the dev job. I wasn't actively looking, so my portfolio wasn't ready, but I sent 5 sites, 2 blogs, 2 brochure sites, and 1 old dynamic site. They seemed impressed and wanted to skip the phone screen for a day of interviews with a tech team of 2, an AOL ambassador for culture, and a front-end guy. They switched the interview day last minute, messing up my schedule. The tech interview was mostly whiteboard stuff on basic programming and syntax, which I hadn't practiced much. I expected questions on OOP, design patterns (except MVC), global storage, and security, but didn't get them. The programming questions were super basic, like '1' === 1, and I thought the first two were trick questions because of a missing semicolon and a question about a for loop statement. I think I made mistakes or took too long on the coding exercises, and they seemed unimpressed. The rest of the interviews felt rushed, like they didn't want to proceed. The AOL ambassador interview was super short (3 mins) because another interviewer interrupted and never returned. She only asked about my previous culture and why I wanted to leave. I was disappointed because I wanted to showcase my unique personality. The front-end guy asked no technical questions, just about my process and experience. It felt like a good chat, but not a good skill evaluation. He also seemed rushed and likely hadn't reviewed my resume or portfolio. The HR person was curt. Apparently, a 4th interviewer was scheduled but didn't show, and the culture person wasn't returning. No one mentioned the PM role I was interested in. It was clear I wasn't getting an offer based on their body language. The recruiter totally wasted my time and a vacation day. I was never asked for code samples or more demos.

Had an informal 20 minute phone call after being recommended by a Huff Post employee, then a few weeks later, I submitted my application on the website. Three weeks later, I was informed I had made it to the next round which required a sample media piece to accompany an article on the website (had one week to finish). Three-four weeks later, I was scheduled for a last round interview. They cancelled on me twice and I had to call to get the new time. Had a final phone interview with two managing editors and was told I'd hear the decision in a week. Never heard back (even after emailing three different people in charge of the program to check in). Seemed very disorganized and inconsiderate to their applicants. Same experience happened to peers who applied for the program.