Parsley Health Interview Questions
& Process

I spoke with the recruiter, then the CMO, and finally the Director. My only issue was the recruiter asked for my availability on Monday for a call via email on Friday. I was really hopeful I'd get an offer on Monday, but the opposite happened. It was a letdown and I feel like it could have been communicated better in Friday's email.

This was the most unprofessional interview I've ever had. The recruiter call was good, they were nice and recommended me to the hiring manager. But the hiring manager interview was awful. They joined the call, said 'Hi' unenthusiastically, and then started talking about politics when I told them where I lived. It was weird and made me uncomfortable. They also didn't seem to have read my resume, asking basic questions from it. The recruiter sent questions beforehand for the hiring manager, but they didn't ask any of them. The hiring manager also said 'Our product sucks, I hate it' without any explanation or context. They seemed disengaged, rushed, and didn't try to sell the company or product at all. I immediately knew I didn't want to work for them.

I applied via a staffing agency. It started with an initial phone screen/resume review, but the interviewer didn't seem thrilled to be there. Next was a take-home assessment, which is where I got stuck, so keep that in mind. I'm guessing there would have been an onsite and then an offer after that. Honestly, I regret going through the effort of interviewing here. This whole process really highlighted the issues with take-home assessments for me, even though I usually find them less nerve-wracking. I had several problems with the feedback I got. Specifically, the requirements document stated some things weren't mandatory (like testing and in-memory databases), but the feedback suggested they would have been good to have and were why my application wasn't moving forward. Why not just state they're required upfront? If you fail the technical interview because of 'non-required' design elements, doesn't that make them required? I've had take-home interviews with way more detailed requirements than this one-page document. Plus, there was no real way to get my questions answered about the requirements during the assessment because my point of contact was with the staffing agency. If you're going to use this type of interview, you need to discuss the requirements with the engineer. It would be smart to set aside an hour a day or two after giving the candidate the requirements to address any questions. This should be standard practice anyway: seeing how a candidate discusses requirements. So, if you're thinking about interviewing at Parsley, I strongly suggest asking for an alternative to the take-home test. If you do decide to do it, be prepared for a couple of long days guessing technical requirements (the original guidelines suggested 72 hours for the assessment). All that said, I do appreciate the feedback on the take-home. I just really think the process could be better and hope the leadership and engineers at Parsley see this and use this feedback going forward.

After a number of promising interviews for the Marketing Manager role, I was asked to complete a take-home assignment. This involved creating a document with actionable ideas and insights derived from data. This task took several hours, which at my freelance rate of $70/hr (exc tax) represented a significant amount of unpaid work, comparable to what other companies pay for such deliverables. This also took time away from my own business. Upon submission of the assignment, the job was offered to someone else. While I understand this happens, I received no feedback on my work, and there was no follow-through or offer of compensation.