I initially applied at the end of October, almost a month later I got an email from HR saying that they were interested and would love to talk. After exchanging emails with the HR person over a day or so, we setup a phone interview. The phone interview went well, the HR person was incredibly friendly, very outgoing, easy to talk to, nothing short of just a great person in general, most of the questions he asked were behavioral type questions, nothing technical, just trying to get a feel for whether my personality would be a good fit with the team there. Within a week of the phone interview, I heard back from HR saying that they liked what they had seen, and I was on to the second round of interviews, this was the middle of December, which was roughly 45 days or so after my initial application for the position.
Within 8 days, I had a second interview scheduled, this one was a video interview with one of the people I would potentially be working with, this person seemed a little reserved, but all in all was friendly, and very informative about the position, and even took me for a virtual / video tour of the office. We concluded the roughly hour long video interview with them telling me that they would be giving their approval of me, and recommending me for the next step in the process.
One day after the video interview, I received another email from HR saying that they would like to schedule another video interview, this one would be with the person I just interviewed with, and the two co-owners of the company. We went back and forth over a few days, and after some scheduling conflicts on their end (this was over the Christmas / New Years time frame, so this is understandable), we finally arranged a video interview.
This is where things seemed to really change direction. I was early for the video interview (10 minutes or so), and so was the person I previously interviewed with, however, the two co-owners were a few minutes (less than 5) late. When they sat down, the first question that was asked of me was "Well, why are we here?" I answered, and was immediately on the defensive. Over the next hour or so, the one co-owner did the majority of the talking / questioning, and no matter what I said, it seemed as though I did not answer the questions correctly, these weren't your typical interview questions, but he seemed to change them on the fly, and seemed to have a definitive answer in his head as to what he was looking for, but did not phrase the question so that it could be easily interpreted. I feel as though I was asked the same, or similar questions over and over, just phrased differently, and again I felt as though I was being attacked. He was not generally very friendly, and seemed a bit narcissistic. The other co-owner admittedly was not very technical (his words), but I noticed that he acted as though he did not want to be a part of the interview. He constantly was looking at his phone, not making eye contact with me, was very quiet, and almost seemed bored or like he was falling asleep during the whole process. Up until this third and final interview, I had a great feeling about the company, and what they do, but after meeting the owners, I knew that I would not be a good fit, even if I were to be offered the position. A few days later, I received the "thanks for applying, but we have decided not to offer you the position" email, and honestly, I was not unhappy.
I have no ill will towards ZIO or any of its employees, I do think the interview process is a bit slow, especially for a technology company, and I think that the owners really need to re-evaluate things, as they are going to continually lose out on great candidates.
