Isilon, A Division of EMC Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process has 3 stages. I've been through all of them as both a candidate and an interviewer. First, HR does a quick review and screening to make sure your skills match what EMC is looking for and what you expect from EMC. If it's a fit, you talk to the hiring manager for a phone screen. The hiring manager picks a senior support engineer with a similar background to ask tough questions to check your critical thinking and technical skills. If that engineer thinks you might be a good fit, you go to the final stage. In the third stage, you come in for a bunch of interviews. There are 4 half-hour interviews with two senior support engineers, the hiring manager, and a supervisor. You also get to talk more about the job and the company with HR. They usually decide within a few days after the in-person interviews because everyone involved meets to share their thoughts on the candidate. The hiring manager makes the final call based on the feedback and talks with HR about the offer details if they want to hire you. HR then contacts you with the decision and will usually explain why, whether it's a yes or no.

So, first I had a phone screen with the lead technical writer who asked me if I knew about minimalist writing. Then, I went for an in-person interview. I met with three people one by one: a Technical Writing lead, a team manager, and a developer. It was pretty relaxed, no pressure tactics or anything. The lead focused a lot on my resume. They asked me about my processes for starting a new job and how I orient myself, expecting me to be able to explain how I'd work independently. I was also asked to describe Scrum. The lead seemed a bit surprised by my answer, maybe didn't know Scrum that well himself. The manager asked about my vision for ideal documentation, basically checking if I knew my stuff. The developer explained a new NAS feature called Deduplication and then asked me to explain it back. He also asked what I'd do if a last-minute change needed to be included in documentation right before publishing, and I suggested release notes. Finally, he inquired about my coding experience, and I showed him some PHP scripts I'd written.

I applied online and had a recruiter call, then two phone screens, and then I was invited for an on-site interview. There were a total of four technical one-on-one rounds. The first two went well, but the last two felt like the interviewers had already made up their minds. The first of the bad interviews was with someone vague, who kept checking his phone, interrupted me, and moved on quickly. He seemed to nitpick my answers, even the correct ones, and asked theoretical questions. I thought that was bad, but the last round was worse. I interviewed with a PhD candidate who mentioned it a lot. He started criticizing my resume and suggested changes. He was also vague, loud, rude, and arrogant, and wouldn't let me finish my responses. He also implied he lives and breathes code, so I had to be careful. When an interview clearly goes south, it's probably best to just leave. I made some mistakes, but their interview approach wasn't justified.

The interview process was marred by blatant age and gender discrimination from the interviewer, to the point I had to ask him to stop and involve HR because he was breaking the law. This likely led to HR implementing interview training for everyone. They did offer me the job, and I took it, which I now somewhat regret, though that interviewer turned out to be great. Clearly, people need training to overcome ignorance.