I thought I should share this story with you all. This was a few years back when I was applying for jobs straight out of college. I applied for a job at a hedgefund through a recruiter. The position was for secretarial/front desk work. Of course the job description did not disclose how much the salary would be.
The interview process was long and arduous. There were a number of phone interviews in addition to several online videos I was told to watch to prepare for the “main interview” which was a multi-step 8 hour in-person process.
I show up to the main interview. There were a number of group and individual interviews in addition to group exercises which were basically discussion/debate questions that all the interviewees had to discuss together. At one point I asked how much this role would pay, and was given a vague answer that it might be anywhere between $40,000 and $120,000/ year. Huge red flag; I know. I had assumed because it’s a hedgefund that the salary would be large, but I still don’t know to this day what the salary would have been.
The real kicker about this job was this: it was revealed that the company’s “high-performing meritocracy” ran off this app that everyone in the company had to download and use. After every interaction with another person during the course of the day, you’re supposed to go into the app and rate the people you talked to on a scale of 1-5 and write comments about their performance. This could be in reference to a meeting you just had, or something as informal as asking them a question. And you were expected to rate people multiple times a day. And you yourself would be rated on this app constantly. The Glassdoor reviews for this company are very negative; everyone mentions a toxic working environment. Of course, during the interview I bullshitted about how the rating system sounded so great and would really improve performance.
Suffice it to say I didn’t get the job. The only good things that came out of all that work was 1) A room full of snacks and beverages for interviewees that I took full advantage of. (I actually think in retroscept that that was a test and I failed by eating so many snacks.) 2) A free lunch. 3) The company paid for you to travel to and from the interview. I got like $40 in gas reimbursement.