Plentific Interview Questions
& Process

So, I had two interviews. First up was with the Head of HR, who, weirdly, forgot about our meeting - I had to remind her 5 mins in! But she was actually pretty cool, talked about the job, the hurdles, and the vibe of the place. She seemed to dig me and even said she'd be happy to work together and was excited to build out the HR team. She did apologize for being late, which was actually really human. Pretty much, she offered me the job on the spot. The second interview was supposed to be a formality, like a quick hello, with the Head of Talent. Honestly, this recruiter was a mess. The whole thing lasted maybe 15 mins, he looked totally bored, didn't engage at all, and then told me I shouldn't get the job because I was *too good*. And get this, during the 15 mins, he had an Amazon package arrive and was way more interested in opening that. I couldn't believe it. He clearly didn't care. After all that, they couldn't even be bothered to send a rejection email. They really need to sort out their hiring process.

I applied for the job via Glassdoor and then got an email to schedule an HR interview. The HR person asked about my salary expectations and my reasons for wanting to switch jobs. After that, I received a React assignment. I completed the assignment, but it was challenging because there weren't clear evaluation criteria. When they sent it back, they said it 'did not fully meet the necessary qualities and best practices that are required for this role.' I'm still unsure what they were looking for, maybe state management with Redux or specific naming conventions, or perhaps it was code repetition? I don't know. It could be a good learning experience to test your skills, but the evaluation might not be fair for various reasons. I did get a hint to write super readable code for the assignment, which I think might be the key to passing it.

I applied for a junior backend engineering job. First, I had a call with HR where we talked about my resume and my reasons for applying. Then, they sent me a coding challenge to build a REST API with Django. After I finished that, I had a technical interview with three senior engineers. They asked me to solve a simple Python problem, write unit tests, and think about test cases. We also discussed HTTP, APIs, and SQL databases. The last step was a cultural interview with the head of engineering and the CTO. They asked about my previous jobs and my motivation for switching, and also some technical questions, mostly about REST APIs.

3 interview stages happened in July 2022, and the whole thing took 1 month. I mean, the company does good work and the hiring manager was lovely, but the candidate experience is seriously lacking. The first screening call was one of the worst I've ever had. The interviewer didn't seem engaged with my answers, just said 'ok' and moved on. I figured I wouldn't get past that, but 20 minutes later, I got an email saying I had. The second stage with the hiring manager was great, no issues there. The third stage (in person) was decent. Getting feedback after each interview took way too long. I waited a week after the second stage, and after the third stage, it took 2 weeks, and only after they said I had an offer did they reject me. My advice is to rethink how you treat candidates. First impressions matter, and the interview process really sets the tone for how someone's role will be at a new company.