Securly Interview Questions
& Process

I went through three technical rounds. The first round had an easy LeetCode question. The second round was mostly about OOPS concepts. The third round involved a modified LeetCode medium problem, kind of like a pop quiz. They didn't ask much about Python or my projects, and there wasn't any deep technical discussion.

The head of talent reached out to me via email. We then had a 45-60 minute phone conversation. I thought the call with him was great, not at all like the typical scripted recruiter calls you get in the Bay Area. He actually added value and even sent a one-page document with links about the company and its market, which was a first. After that, I spoke with the SVP of Sales for 45 minutes, which was a very impactful and great conversation. Then, I had a call with the Dir of Sales for the East region. Finally, I went onsite to San Jose to meet with the SVP of sales, some peers, and the BDR manager.

I was really disappointed by this interview process, which I found to be disorganized and disrespectful of my time. There seems to be a breakdown between the recruiting and hiring manager sides of the house. I was contacted by an outside recruiter working for the company and had two conversations with HR. Before connecting me with the hiring manager they also asked me to take a 90-minute assessment, which I completed. When the time came to speak with the hiring manager, first red flag about disrespect of time: he was 25 minutes late to the call and offered no apology. It was clear from the get-go that there had been miscommunication or under-communication between HR and him, as he asked me how I found them. I explained they came to me with an external recruiter the company was using to hire for this role, which he seemed unaware of. He then asked me only two questions before turning it over to me for my questions. After about 10 additional minutes of conversation, he interrupted me and said: "sounds like you have a lot of questions and I'll be honest with you: you're not one of the top candidates I'm looking at for this role, so I don't want to spend anymore time here." I said that was surprising to hear because I had been sourced by their recruiter and had two conversations with HR. He said that because I wasn't willing to relocate and didn't check other boxes essential to him that I wasn't a fit. TOTALLY FAIR FEEDBACK, except that's what I expect the phone screens to suss out, so that time isn't wasted by the candidate or the hiring manager. Where it again crossed the line to being a little disrespectful: "maybe there had been fewer candidates in the pipeline at the time so you looked more attractive then." Again, fair that somebody might think that and I value candor; but to say it like that is a little unprofessional in my opinion. There was a broader theme of being talked down to during the conversation with the hiring manager. For example, I've worked in both sales and account management for 7 years. When the hiring manager asked me to explain how I'd done both, considering they are so different, before I could answer he stepped in to explain a rudimentary business development concept to me of "hunters vs. farmers." He then moved on to the next question. Considering the amount of time it took to do the assessment and have the other phone screen conversations (an additional 90 mins), I was disappointed to hear it was a waste of time. Sometimes you interview, you don't get the job, but it's not a waste of time. You need to go through the process to know it's not a mutual fit. This to me felt very disrespectful of my time and I was disappointed to have such a negative experience. This seems to be a common theme in reviews I read after my own experience.

The interview process is like applying to Microsoft. It starts with a telephonic round, then an online test, followed by a Skype round. After that, there are three face-to-face rounds, a management round, and finally, if you have the patience, an HR round. This process is extremely long; you might lose patience and want to quit midway. I'm not sure why so many rounds are needed when all interviewers could be present at once for a single session, unless you're a big tech company like Google, Facebook, Amazon, or Microsoft.