A few days after I applied online with my employee referral, Progressive emailed me an online skills test that took about 45 minutes to complete. 3-4 days later they emailed another one, which took another 45 minutes. I had no idea, really, how I had performed on these tests because there wasn't any feedback on them and I had no idea what they were looking for. After that, it was radio silence for 2.5 weeks. I heard nothing from the company during that time. I assumed I hadn't passed.
Finally, I was contacted to schedule a phone interview, of which there were no openings closer than a week away. I was impressed that they offered some suggestions on how to prep for the phone interview in their email. The phone interview lasted about a half hour. The woman I spoke with was very polite, but I wouldn't call her "nice". She didn't make me feel at ease, but she wasn't rude to me either, which was fine. She asked some perfunctory questions about my current job, what my understanding of the job posting was, and some customer service related questions. After that she told me I'd hear back "soon".
Soon turned out to be another two weeks, when someone called me to schedule an in-person interview later that week. Around the same time I was contacted by their background check company to start the process of my background check, which I did. I interviewed with two managers who were both very nice. I will say that my in-person interview experience was great. The two men who interviewed me made me feel very comfortable and it felt like we were having a conversation. They told me about themselves, their experience with the company and the format of the interview. They asked 5 questions and I was required to use the STAR format with my answers. I felt that the interview went very well, and I left feeling relatively confident. I was told it would take two weeks to hear back from them. I was disappointed when I got a rejection email yesterday.
My experience overall was very neutral. The in-person interview went well and the two men were nice, the woman on the phone was so-so but still seemed like an okay person. My overall impression of the interview process with Progressive wasn't very impressive. I felt waiting that long between each interview for feedback, with no one to contact, was frustrating. I also felt like the two skills tests that took up almost two hours of my free time was excessive. I'm also unhappy that I started the background check process with no job offer. Now a company has all of my personal information, including SSN, for no reason.