Rapid Ratings International Interview Questions
& Process

They have a very straightforward and pleasant interview process. I found everyone at Rapid ratings to be nice to deal with. There was a 15 minute call with the HR manager discussing general experience. A 30 minute teams call. This was a casual, but technical, run through of my experience with an architect. There were a few standard technical questions thrown in. The final interview was 90 minutes in person with the hiring manager and another architect. This consisted of a 30 minute code challenge, and an hour of going through my experience in detail, with a whiteboard exercise to explain a project I had worked on.

I applied for the Snr UX Designer role because it seemed interesting, and the job description explicitly stated that prior experience in a similar domain was not required. The process started with a screening call, which went smoothly. Next, a 4-hour design task followed where I was asked to design a few SaaS interfaces while using their incomplete design style guide, which lacked sufficient detail. For a 4-hour task, the requirements were rather intensive (and that was not ok). After submitting the task, I presented it to a team of interviewers. Shortly after, I was invited for another interview with the same group. This time, the focus shifted to job-specific questions that only candidates with exact, relevant experience could confidently answer. While I drew on knowledge from other domains, it became evident that this wasn’t sufficient to meet their expectations. The interview process felt unnecessarily stressful and disjointed. It became clear that the company was looking for someone with highly specific experience, contrary to what the job posting suggested. Additionally, the order of the interview stages seemed counterproductive. Instead of assigning the design task upfront, it would have been more logical to conduct an initial interview to evaluate alignment in terms of chemistry, experience, and skills before investing time and effort into a design task. Overall, the process suggested that the company lacks experience interviewing designers (hence, poor design maturity). A more structured and thoughtful approach would not only save candidates’ time but also reflect better on the company.

The process started with a third-party recruiter, then moved to internal HR, followed by several calls with the CEO and a consultant. They explicitly asked about my age, mentioning that current employees are younger. They asked many questions that are illegal in the US. My final contact was with the third-party recruiter, who apologized and stated they were developing an 'education program' for the CEO.

I had an initial half-hour screening call with my would-be manager, who got in touch shortly afterwards to invite me for interview. At this interview he was joined by a second Dublin-based manager. They invited me for round two a few days later, attaching an assignment that would form the basis of the interview. They wanted me to put together a presentation outlining what I would do in the first 90 days and providing a detailed description of how I would create a content strategy to help increase engagement and product uptake. During this interview, I met my would-be manager again along with an Australia-based executive. They got in touch afterwards to say both had been impressed with my presentation, but the Australian ‘was rueful’ that they hadn’t asked for a content strategy for their Help Centre as well – because this was important to their strategic goals – and would I mind reviewing their Help Centre and making suggestions about how it might be improved. I completed and submitted the additional assignment, got a curt knock-back, and they ghosted me when I requested feedback.