I had a negative experience with two different interview processes at Fortinet.

First, I applied for a role through a referral and didn't get any response back. I applied through LinkedIn for the same role 4 weeks later. HR reached out in a day and sent an OA Hackerrank link.

The OA was 90 minutes, with 5 questions, easy/medium Leetcode. After one week, I was informed that the test results were good, but they were having a hiring freeze on the team, and no one was getting hired for the role. Therefore, they helped me connect with other recruiters regarding roles of interest, which is nice.

The second recruiter reached out about another role and said I needed to do a different OA this time, 150 minutes and 7 questions. I believe I answered all of the questions correctly.

I reached out to the recruiter to expedite the process since I had another verbal offer but I definitely preferred Fortinet. The recruiter called and said the manager was happy with the results. But I received two more calls after that asking weird questions about the details of my other offer, which I answered honestly to the extent I was allowed.

After this, they said they would try to schedule the interviews as soon as possible to speed up the process. I received a call the next day that they were moving forward with another candidate who had more YoE!

This is absolutely a waste of time for the candidate; I spent 4 hours in OA, passed them, and didn't even make it to the technical interview because of non-technical reasons!

Hackerrank OA: Leetcode easy/medium + SQL + REST API