THINK TWICE. This was the most 1-way and INAPPROPRIATE interview process I ever experienced. I would recommend being very careful in considering to interview with this company. In particular, think twice about giving reference information early in the process as they may not keep information collected confidential.
STEP 1: The process started with phone screen, then continued with several phone-based interviews.
STEP 2: The next phase included a visit to the offices in MN for a full day of 1:1 interviews. After traveling to MN, they ushered me into a conference room and interviewers came in one after the other to interview me all day. They did not ask me if I wanted to see the environment / office or allow me to see a common work space. In a follow-up call, they asked me what I thought of the company and I let them know that I would like to actually see the office / workspace in a future visit.
STEP 3: After passing that round, I was asked to complete an online referral process where I they asked for contact information on 2 previous managers, 2 current peers and 2 or more individuals who reported to me to give online feedback. This was very UNCOMFORTABLE at this phase of the process. Typically, referrals are used at the end of he process, when a candidate is leaning heavily toward taking the opportunity, not in the middle. This required that I disclosed that I was interviewing to several co-workers who provided referrals. Although the input was collected online, which was convenient for colleagues, they were given a very short timeframe, I believe 3-4 days, to provide the input.
STEP 4: After that moving past that phase, I was asked to come back to MN and participate in an intensive executive assessment. The pre-work for the day's visit involved doing 4 hours of online personality assessments and tests. They requested that the pre-work be completed within 5 days during a working week. The assessments in-person involved 8 hours of additional online tests, simulations, and in-depth interviews.
STEP 5: After the day, the hiring manager did not call me for 2 weeks. I felt like I had spent a day in an X-ray booth for them and now they left me hanging without any feedback or contact. They did call 2 weeks later providing very little explanation of the delay and then asked for more references. I had given 2 former, recent bosses who had left the company and they asked for more current co-workers / bosses. I thought this was completely INAPPROPRIATE.
STEP 6: I continued in the process and gave them additional references. The individuals who they spoke to as my references told me that the conversations were very unusual. Two of the references said that the recruiter told them about input collected from the online referrals and executive assessment. AGAIN, completely INAPPROPRIATE.
Although a few months have past, I thought I was clear of this NEGATIVE experience. Well they were once again INAPPROPRIATE. One of their recruiters called one of my references and asked for ideas on candidates for another role. I REGRET giving them any reference information. They did not treat information confidentially or participate in the process professionally.