I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Zocdoc (New York, NY) in Jun 2015
Interview
There were sort of two phases to the interview. I was first contacted via e-mail after applying online, which I think I did through Indeed. I had an initial phone interview with someone from "People Ops" (their codeword for HR), and then an in-person interview about a week later.
The phone interview was mostly about ascertaining my reasons for wanting to leave my current job, reasons for wanting to join ZocDoc, and attempts to align my expectations with what the job actually entailed. I appreciated the phone recruiter being completely up-front about what the job paid. While the pay was lower than what I was seeking, I decided to attend the in-person interview anyway, as the recruiter told me that most people are promoted "within their first nine months" and my current position had no opportunity to advance.
I arrived for the in-person interview a little early, as the e-mail including the interview offer made a point of the importance of punctuality. Given that, I was a little miffed that I had to wait quite some time before my interview actually took place. I was offered bottled water by the receptionist while waiting.
When the interview commenced, I was led to a VERY small room (think phone booth size), and a little while later joined by who would be the first of three people to interview me. The first interviewer asked mainly about my technical experience, projects and responsibilities at my previous job. The next mainly focused on my customer service background. The final seemed mostly interested in my hobbies and personal/education background. The tone was mostly casual, and there were no "gotcha" questions or technical tests. Each person took 30 minutes, for a total of 90, and between wait times between them and the initial wait, the entire process took slightly over two hours.
I took me about an hour to get home from the interview, and when I checked my e-mail I found a request for them to contact me by phone to extend an offer. I ended up accepting because, although the compensation is fairly low for the responsibility of the position, and the hours are a little long, the benefits are pretty much unbeatable and there seems to be a lot of mobility, both vertically and horizontally within the company.
Interview questions [3]
Question 1
Can you tell me how you solved [problem x] in [project y] at your previous position? (programming question)
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Zocdoc (New York, NY) in Oct 2012
Interview
My recruiter contacted me shortly after applying for two positions (full-time and part-time Patient Operations positions), and was very friendly over the phone. After discussing my experience and specific skills I had, he mentioned that there was an opening for a Technical Operations Associate that he could consider me for, and said that my skills were a good fit and that there would mostly be training on the job. At this time, I noted that the description of this opening was very vague, and said less about the skills they needed for someone in this job than it did about the attitude of the person they needed. That's kind of par for the course for a lot of start-up jobs in NYC, though. It took about two weeks to get an interview date locked down (this was before/during/after Hurricane Sandy).
When I came in for the interview, it was in two rounds. The first was with two people from the department, including a supervisor (they gave me conflicting reports about how the department was structured). They asked me a bunch of questions about my technical background, and the supervisor was visibly and verbally unimpressed by my skills and qualifications. Pretty early on in this phase of the interview, I realized this position was distinctly different from what the recruiter had explained. The second round was with two people from another department (possibly recruiting/HR), and this round went much better - I had a better repor with both of these interviewers, and they seemed more receptive to the questions I had about ZocDoc, although they were evasive about some questions I had about how the departments were structured, and seemed to up-sell the idea of getting promoted moreso than what I would be doing in the role I was interviewing for.
About two days after my interview, I received a form email notifying me I wasn't being considered for the job, which I wasn't surprised by. Overall, I got a negative impression of how ZocDoc is run internally after this interview process, and felt as though there was a distinct disconnect between the recruiting process and the interviews.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What is the most technical thing you've ever done?
Have you ever worked with engineers?