I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at AKQA
Interview
The recruitment process was fast.The position was published in Linkedin. There were couple of phone screenings and phone interviews.If I remember it correctly - 1-2 phone screens and 1 phone interview.
They called me for in-person interview. The in-person interview was lengthy. It went on for 6 hours and I was interviewed by 9 folks. It seemed I was interviewing for Google.
Some of the questions were circled around technology. Others were around planning for programs and projects.I being a technologist and a project manager , It was easy for me to sail through these queries. The queries were around identity and access management (SAML,SSO) and planning for such projects. What was surprising is that - The JD would mention of experience in BEA and ATG, but they do not have expertise or have ever worked on BEA or ATG.
I applied online. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at AKQA (San Francisco, CA) in Jan 2014
Interview
The process was very slow moving. AKQA's recruiter contacted me in asking for a phone chat, and once it was scheduled she ended up flaking on me 2 minutes before the scheduled call. It took TWO months for her to get the call rescheduled with me. After the call, she had me come in to meet with the head of PM. The conversation went well, but then it took another FULL month to schedule me to come in and meet with the rest of the team I'd be working with.
I could tell by speaking to the team there that they were harried, overworked and overstressed, though doing good work. After a complete background check, they made me an offer pretty quickly thereafter, which was just an OK offer - basically matching my current compensation rather than trying to do better. The recruiter did not respond to my request to share contact info for the other team members I met with, nor more details about the health benefits offered...I'm sure she'd already moved on to the next job she was trying to fill.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The account I was interviewing for had lost 6 project managers in as many months. The head of PM asked me what I would do to prevent that kind of turnover in the future and ensure the success of the PMs on the account moving forward. I asked what the reason(s) were that the PMs hadn't been successful, and the response was, "If we knew that, we could solve the problem ourselves!"
