Xcel Energy Interview Questions
& Process

I had 2 interviews lined up. The first was with a recruiter, and the second was with the hiring managers. The first interview got rescheduled twice because the interviewer missed the first two times. During the interview, I was told I was basically guaranteed the job. The second interview was pretty standard, but I didn't quite hit what they were looking for. After that interview, my opinion of Xcel really dropped. I had to chase them down myself for any feedback on whether I was still in the running. After a few weeks, I finally heard back and they said they went with someone else, even though the job was posted again. The whole experience made me feel like Xcel didn't value me or my time.

The interview process was pretty straightforward and quick. The only hiccup was that the work hours weren't clearly communicated upfront. It involved two interviews: the first was a brief 15-minute chat with the hiring manager, and the second, longer one, about 30 minutes, included the same manager along with another supervisor. Both meetings were conducted via Zoom, but thankfully, I didn't need to have my camera on.

The recruiter initially paused the role to focus on hiring an IT Director. However, a few weeks later, I received an interview invite for a panel interview with four Enterprise Architects from MN. During the one-hour interview, it became clear that the EA team operated in an ivory tower, and despite my TOGAF certification, they were condescending. The manager's "good luck" at the end implied I had no chance from the start. The people here are awful.

So I applied for a Data Scientist role at Xcel Energy and it was a really drawn-out process over three months. I got an initial email invite from HR about a week after applying. The communication was all over the place and super frustrating. What was wild though, during the technical interviews with the hiring managers and other folks, none of them seemed to know basic data analysis stuff, even though they were like Quantitative Analysts and Data Analysts. The questions they asked were just not relevant or showed they didn't get core data science concepts. I waited three more months after the last interview to get a rejection. The job posting kept getting posted and taken down with no real explanation. Then, right after I got rejected, they posted the same job again but with a totally different description. It felt like they just interviewed a bunch of people to get free data science knowledge and then re-listed the job. Honestly, it was a pretty disappointing and unprofessional experience with Xcel Energy's hiring. Their interviewers lacking basic knowledge and the communication mess just shows how they hire for data science roles.