Zapier seems to pride itself heavily on their interview process being unique, and overall better than the interview process at other technical organizations.

In "Our Commitment to Applicants" on their jobs page, they speak about how interviewing at an organization is usually like a "black box" and that they strive to make sure their candidates never go more than seven days without hearing from them.

A few things. First of all, seven days is quite a long time to go between contact with the recruitment team of an organization for which you are interviewing to work.

I interviewed at multiple other companies whilst going through the process at Zapier, and received responses to my submissions and questions far more promptly. I have friends in the recruitment sector of their orgs that tell me that it's frowned upon to go more than 48 hours without contact with a candidate.

Second of all, my process interviewing at Zapier could not have been more of a black box, and I went exactly (sometimes slightly more than) seven days between contact with the recruiter. I will summarize my experience below.

I applied via the online. The application was robust, and asked a lot of interview-level questions (describe a project you recently worked on, etc.) which seemed to offload some of the fat from the actual interview process onto the application; I actually liked this — I felt like I was being vetted beyond my CV in the application, and it gave me a chance to be more personal.

One week (to the day) later, I got an email from a recruiter that they wanted to move forward with my application and schedule an initial video screening. I scheduled a screening with her, and we spoke face-to-face six days later.

The screening was a typical initial screening. There were no in-depth technical questions, but it related more to my past experiences, what I was looking for in a new role, why Zapier, etc. The recruiter said I could expect to hear back soon.

The next day, I sent a thank-you email to the recruiter for speaking with me. I did not hear any response. Six days later (now a week since my video screening), I sent another email to ask her if there was any update on my application. The following day (now eight days since my screening), I got an email from her saying they wanted to move me forward and have me complete a take-home exam, which would be 4 hours and 15 minutes long.

This is an extremely large time commitment for a take-home exam — luckily, I have no family of my own and a generally good work-life balance, but I fret for applicants who are single parents or looking after sick family members, etc. and might not have over 4 hours free time outside of their full-time jobs to devote to a code test for a role they may or may not get. Regardless, I was happy to move forward.

I submitted my Github credentials so that she could send me the test instructions and share the repo with me. Upon getting this information, I wrote her again to ask if she could let me know the time frame in which they would like the test to be finished (most places ask to have it in within a week, but no deadline was specified). I received no response to this inquiry.

I presumed that a week's time was sufficient, and submitted my code test six days after receiving it. I wrote again to my recruiter to let her know I had completed it and asked her to let me know if they needed anything else. Normally this is responded to with a "Thanks!" "All good!" but I received no such response.

A full week later, I received a response from her apologizing that it had taken so long for my code test to be reviewed, but that she would let me know once there was an update (so, she contacted me seven days later, but with no update). I wrote back, told her it was no problem, and thanked her for letting me know.

NINE DAYS after this last message, she wrote me to tell me that they had decided to pass on my application.

So, 37 days after her initial contact, and 44 days after I first submitted my application, during which time I completed a 4 hour code test and had absolutely no contact with anyone on the technical team (or with anyone except the recruiter herself), I finally was told that they were passing on my application.

I thanked her for letting me know, and I asked if she had any feedback for me from the team, as I had felt quite confident with my take-home and thought it would be useful to find out what they thought went wrong. I received no response from this inquiry, and given the contact I received during this process, I have no doubt I will never receive an answer.

It's one thing to have a nebulous interview process during which the interviewing company has a tough time staying in touch with the candidates. But for a company who seems to pride themselves on having a "different" and "transparent" interview process, one during which "we will not go silent on you," I find it almost laughable.

Initial screening, take-home test (4 hours, 15 minutes).