LONG POST. PLEASE READ BEFORE GIVING AN INTERVIEW.

SHORT SUMMARY: UNPROFESSIONAL, WASTE OF TIME.

The recruiter (SB) contacted me via LinkedIn for a Sr. Software Engineer - Frontend Development position. In the very first call, she gave me a brief introduction about the company and asked for my current and expected compensation, as well as my notice period. I discussed my expected salary with her and asked her to get approval from business/management on the same before proceeding with the interview. She told me that since my expected CTC was within their bracket, she did not need approval before proceeding with the interview.

To start the process, she gave me an online HackerRank test (Duration: 1 hour), which I cleared. She then scheduled my next rounds of interviews for Saturday, July 18th:

• 3 Technical Rounds
• 1 Hiring Manager Round

First Round (11:00 AM - 12:15 PM) The interview covered basic and advanced JS concepts, a couple of programming questions, data structures, ReactJS, HTML, and CSS.

Second Round (12:30 PM - 1:15 PM) The interviewer asked me about my current work, role, and responsibilities. He asked a couple of questions on website performance and security, and one programming activity on ReactJS (to design a notification UI similar to Facebook).

Third Round (4:00 PM - 5:00 PM) This was a mixture of technical and managerial rounds. The interviewer asked me about my past and current assignments, role, and nature of work, as well as my best project to date. He then discussed a couple of questions on ReactJS, CI/CD, website performance, and security.

There were a couple of programming activities:

1. Convert "test is gr8" to "t-e-s-t i-s g-r-8".
2. Create a ReactJS class with an input box, use the above transformation on the user's inputted value, and display it in a <div>.

After the programming activities, he asked if I had any questions. I inquired about the roles/responsibilities and benefits the company provides to employees.

On Tuesday, July 21st, I received a documentation request via email for HR discussion. I submitted all the required documents and waited for a reply. On Wednesday, July 22nd, I received a call from HR to clarify my current compensation breakup. I answered all her questions, and she stated she would send me the offer by 4 PM.

But, as you may have heard, "All that glitters is not gold." So, here comes the twist in the hiring process, which the company claimed to be transparent and refined.

I did not receive any mail or call from HR that day. So, on Thursday, July 23rd, I called HR to get an update on my candidature. She said that the offer was pending approval with the HR head, and since he was on leave for the week, she couldn't proceed with the offer until approval.

One more week passed...

On Monday, July 27th, I called HR for an update. She said that the HR head was available that day and she would get approval for the offer by then. Later that evening, I received an email stating, "There have been some internal issues (which the HR was not aware of until that day) around the requisition/requirement against which we want to make the offer, and the offer is stuck at the top management level for approval."

On Wednesday, July 29th, the opening for which I was interviewed was no longer listed on the job portal. A new opening was posted with a different JD (Sr. Software Engineer Frontend - React/Redux), Requisition Number: 4441.

On Saturday, August 1st, I received an email stating, "The position has gone on hold. In case it gets resolved, we will be happy to extend an offer, however, cannot commit a deadline. But please don’t restrict yourself and feel free to explore other opportunities."

Wasn't the business/HR aware of the status of the profile for which they were shortlisting and interviewing candidates? And I think it's not just me whose time was wasted; there would be others as well who would have been interviewed on that day or in the past and would have gone through a similar outcome.

Interestingly, after a week, the job that was posted on Wednesday, July 29th (Requisition Number: 4441) was later edited to "Senior Software Engineer - Frontend Development (Node/Typescript)" and the JD was the same for which I was interviewed.

It truly feels regrettable to witness such unprofessional conduct from companies. Chegg is like many other IT companies where HR tends to keep things obscure. It's better to say "REJECTED" to candidates rather than wasting their time.

Please think twice before giving an interview at Chegg, as the profile can go on hold anytime, which the HR might not be aware of ;) and your efforts will go in vain.

Prototypical inheritance

Currying

Memonisation

Event bubbling & Event propagation

Closures

Polyfill for reduce

Basics of ReactJS

Web Security

Improve Website performance