Taboola Interview Questions
& Process

My candidate experience was a learning opportunity. I completed an initial phone screen with the recruiter, followed by a Google Meet interview with the Sales Director, Growth Advertising Sales and Head of Growth. Based on the feedback shared, it seemed the hiring team recognized the value my people management skills could bring to Taboola. However, my experience in designing and implementing processes was not fully understood or explored more. Despite having years of proven success creating ideas and operationalizing processes, there wasn’t a deeper discussion around this aspect of my background. I’ve served as a sales leader, mentor, and sales enablement leader, including building Value Selling programs. I'm a certified Sales Coach. I’ve also founded, launched, and operated a successful full-service advertising agency with a complete staff, giving me more hands-on experience across leadership, strategy, and execution. I have strong professional references from my leaders, clients and peers. Unfortunately, the interview did not start on a strong note, as the hiring team joined Google Meet very late, which shortened the conversation and limited the opportunity for meaningful dialogue. If there had been interest in better assessing fit, a productive approach would have been to ask about a specific project or initiative from my resume, professional website, or LinkedIn profile, where relevant examples are outlined. Taboola appears to be a strong company with a positive reputation. They are well regarded for their workplace culture, emphasis on growth and learning, and competitive digital advertising solutions. Overall, it’s worth engaging in the interview process if you’re invited. Structure your responses using the STAR method: Situation, Task, Action, Result. Try to gain a clear understanding of the most important needs for the person filling the role. If the interviewer is willing to share this, you'll be in a stronger position to focus on the topics that matter most.

The process was straightforward. First, I had a chat with HR about the job and what they're looking for. Then, a quick call with someone from the team. After that, I went in for an onsite interview where I met the team lead and another team member. We talked a lot about technical stuff and how to solve problems. I also got a take-home assignment. The last step was another technical chat with the team lead and a colleague, where we went over my take-home assignment in detail. It felt like a good way to see if the technical skills were there and if I'd fit in with the team.

The home assignment, which involved designing and coding a widget similar to Taboola's, took a few days. Afterwards, I was informed that this assignment didn't provide enough information about my skills or thought process. It's confusing why this assignment is still used if that's the case, especially considering the time and effort it demands from candidates. They mentioned it was okay to use AI tools, but then the feedback suggested that using AI was viewed negatively, which is contradictory and leaves candidates unsure of what's truly expected. Additionally, the communication regarding feedback was a letdown. I didn't get proactive feedback, and even when I asked for it, it was very brief. I've been through many interviews, and this was the most disappointing, mainly due to the significant investment of time and energy with no clear evaluation outcome. I'm sharing this because I believe the process could be much better, respecting candidates' time more and being clearer about expectations and how evaluations are made. I went through five interviews, and the final decision was that my "JS level is not good enough." If that's accurate, I don't get how I passed several stages just to be rejected for something so basic.

The HR person was great and easy to talk to. They have a careers page that lists out all the steps. My first interview was nice and focused on something I did at a past job. They asked a lot of ML questions. Then they told me about the company, the job, and their work. After that, I got a homework assignment with three questions: one leetcode style, one ml system design, and one about sorting algorithms. Then there was an interview to discuss the homework. The interviewer was a manager, respectful but kind of condescending. The questions were about technical stuff like why one loss function is better than another, which felt more junior level. In the last question (leetcode), they asked to add a function to delete a value from an array (the homework had me implement find and insert). Maybe there was a disconnect, I was expecting a more senior level discussion, but they wanted me to explain cross-entropy and KLD. After many interviews, this was the first time I felt completely lost and just wanted it to be over. My advice is to only spend 2-3 hours on the home assignment and just focus on studying for the interview like you normally would. The assignment isn't worth the effort.