←back to thread

Accepted and ghosted: interviewing for a leadership position at Stripe

1703 points danrocks | 1 comments | 30 Nov 21 00:30 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

Recently I interviewed with Stripe for an engineering MoM (Manager of Managers) for one of their teams. I interview regularly, so I am used to many types of processes, feedback mechanisms, and so on. I won't go into details about the questions because there's nothing special about them, but I wanted to share some details of my experience for people thinking of interviewing there.

1) About 35-40% of the interviewers started their questioning by saying "I will only need 20 minutes for this", while emphasizing it is an important leadership position that they are hiring for. So 20 minutes is all needed to identify "important, critical leaders"? What a strange thing to say - also a GREAT way to make candidates feel important and wanted!

2) There is significant shuffling of interviewers and schedules. One almost has to be on-call to be able to react quickly.

3) For an engineering manager position, I only interviewed with only technical person. To me it hints that Engineering MoM is not a very technical position.

4) Of all the people I spoke to, the hiring manager was the one I spoke the least with. The phone screen was one of the "I only need 20 minutes for this" calls. The other one was quite amusing, and is described below.

5) After the loop was done, the recruiter called me to congratulate me on passing, and started discussing details of the offer, including sending me a document described the equity program. Recruiter mentioned that the hiring manager would be calling me to discuss the position next.

6) SURPRISE INTERVIEW! I get a call from the hiring manager, he congratulates me on passing the loop, then as I prepare to ask questions about the role, he again says "I need to ask you two questions and need 20 minutes for this". Then proceeds to ask two random questions about platforms and process enforcement, then hangs up the call after I answer. Tells me he'd be calling in a week to discuss the position.

7) I get asked for references.

8) After passing the loop, have the recruiter discuss some details of the offer, have the hiring manager tell me they'd be calling me after a week, I get ghosted for about 3.5 weeks. References are contacted and feedback is confirmed positive.

9) I ping the recruiter to see when the offer is coming - it's not coming. They chose another candidate. I am fine with it, even after being offered verbally, but the ghosting part after wasting so much of my time seems almost intentional.

10) I call up a senior leader in the office I applied to, an acquaintance of mine. His answer: "don't come. It's a mess and a revolving door of people". I was shocked with the response.

11) I get called by the recruiter saying that another director saw my feedback and is very interested in talking to me and do an interview loop.

Guess I'm not joining, then.

I am ok with passing loops, being rejected, I've seen it all. But being ghosted after acceptance is a first. What a bizarre place this is.

Show context
elsbree ◴[30 Nov 21 01:51 UTC] No.29387840[source]▶
Had the opposite experience recently as an EM. Spent a few months trying to find a staff-level engineer. Found a great candidate who worked for a FAANG, worked to get our budget up to his expectations, sold him on the team, and he accepted our offer with a start date 6 weeks in the future so he could have time to wrap up his work. Fine, I'm just happy to have filled the role after an arduous search. A few weeks go by, and he hasn't responded to my "we're excited to have you join the team, etc" email or any HR emails about filling out his paperwork. I call and email, the recruiter calls and emails, nothing. We never hear from him again..

He's been active on social media so we know he's alive, and assume he parlayed our offer into a raise somewhere else. Ok, that happens, but to accept an offer and totally ghost? Jeez. I could have used those intervening weeks to interview more candidates had he just sent me a quick note, now I've got to backfill his position while also trying to fill the new ones that just opened... I guess hiring is a shitshow from both sides sometimes.

replies(10): >>29388129 #>>29388249 #>>29388327 #>>29388530 #>>29388672 #>>29389152 #>>29389744 #>>29389854 #>>29389918 #>>29432460 #
emodendroket ◴[30 Nov 21 03:16 UTC] No.29388530[source]▶
According to the papers, candidate ghosting has been happening more and more often. With such a senior, high-paid position as that, it doesn't really apply, but I can't help but feel a bit of schadenfreude at employers lamenting ghosting candidates, after themselves being the ghosting party so routinely.
replies(4): >>29388682 #>>29391181 #>>29391495 #>>29392145 #
marcus_holmes ◴[30 Nov 21 11:53 UTC] No.29391181[source]▶
this. I recently went through the job-hunting process, and employer's behaviour was terrible (on average, there were some good ones).

I don't think they understand that if they set the bar that low, then we'll all accept that and behave similarly badly.

Like loyalty - employers stopped being loyal to their employees, so employees stopped being loyal back. Every time I see an employer moan about how employees don't care any more, I feel schadenfreude.

We mirror the behaviour we see, because game theory.

replies(1): >>29400039 #
thelettere ◴[01 Dec 21 02:38 UTC] No.29400039[source]▶
"employers stopped being loyal to their employees, so employees stopped being loyal back."

On what basis do you make this claim? It was always my understanding that it started with employees - because what changed was not that employees suddenly started working for multiple employers in the same field but that changing careers was the norm. I don't know how you point the finger at employers for that.

replies(2): >>29400068 #>>29401813 #
1. marcus_holmes ◴[01 Dec 21 08:11 UTC] No.29401813[source]▶
In the dim and distant past of my Dad's youth, it was expected that you'd join a company in your late teens / early twenties, and that company would train you in the skills you needed, pay you a living wage to do your job (enough to raise a family on without another income), and employ you for your entire life, eventually paying you a salary-linked pension until you died. If the company did badly, then it was still obligated to continue employing everyone, and in return the employees were obligated to remain with the company, being "company men", putting the company near the top of their personal priorities. Career advancement meant getting a promotion within the company. If you didn't manage to get promoted, then you stayed in your job, possibly for decades, until you could retire.

Then somewhere in the 70's, that changed, and companies no longer considered themselves obligated to look after their employees (at least in the UK, this was an age of massive strikes, and labour relations at a terrible low). Then in the 80's, the Yuppies took control of their careers and the modern idea of a self-made career where you hop from job to job within the same industry became popular.

I'm old enough to have had the old ideas of loyalty taught to me in school, only to then discover that the world had changed and loyalty was an outdated concept. I'm kinda glad - I would not make a good "company man". But for many it was depressing and strange, and I know a few people who were sacked in mid-career and had no idea how to continue.