I recently interviewed with AbsenceSoft, and there are a few key points I took away from the process:
1. Company Restructuring: The company is currently restructuring their Customer Success (CS) department, and their software and tech stack seem outdated.
2. Recruiter Experience: The recruiter was very nice and kept me updated throughout the process. The initial phone screen consisted of typical preliminary questions like “Tell me about yourself” and discussing day-to-day responsibilities.
3. Interview Experience: In the second round, I met with a manager who had structured interview questions. However, I was informed that they hadn’t looked at my resume before the call to avoid biases. I was asked questions like, “What would you do if a customer in good health status recently informed you they are not renewing?”
4. Conversational Interview: The next round was more conversational with no structured interview questions, which could lead to implicit biases since candidates are not being assessed equally.
5. Panel Interview: The final round was a panel interview where I was instructed to present a QBR (Quarterly Business Review) I’ve done previously. I was given no prompt, script, or guidelines, just 45 minutes total, with 15 minutes for the actual QBR. I sent the team an agenda with role assignments since the company provided no guidelines. Their vague instructions and lack of engagement might indicate that they are not clear about what they are looking for in a candidate. This could reflect poorly on their internal communication and hiring processes. During the QBR, the interviewers were mostly silent, which was very off-putting. Only one of the three interviewers engaged after I probed. Despite asking them direct questions, I received vague responses, and they made no attempts to interact, even though I had sent them their roles, the agenda, and a hyperlink to the software I was mock demoing ahead of time. This felt intentional and somewhat discouraging. The interviewers might not have reviewed my agenda or materials, indicating a lack of preparation. This could suggest poor organizational skills or a lack of prioritization for the interview process. The silence and lack of engagement was indicative of a less collaborative or supportive company culture. If this is the norm, it might suggest that employees are not encouraged to speak up or engage actively in discussions. After the QBR, I was told to engage more with the silent interviewers, which was baffling. I asked for additional feedback but received none. When I moved on from the topic and asked more about their roles and how a CSM interacts with their department, they chose to give feedback about a typo on one of my slides, which felt belittling and unnecessary, especially since we had moved on from that topic. Of the 8 slides of information, this was the only feedback I received and nothing positive was mentioned.
6. Outcome: I was rejected a few days later via phone without additional feedback. The rejection was simply a “thank you for the interviews, but we are not moving forward.”
Overall, it was a neutral experience that seemed indicative of internal issues. The process lacked structure and highlighted the company’s need to build out their processes.
