I applied through a recruiter. The process took 5 weeks. I interviewed at Pocket FM in Oct 2024
Interview
Was submitted through a recruiter. Completed a screener call with the recruiter which led to a technical assessment. After completing the assessment I was moved forward to a final interview with a Pocket FM team member.
The person I spoke with was interested in my experience with Facebook Ad Manager and creating Facebook ads, which was not what the assessment was focused on.
3 weeks later I was told they decided not to move forward. Despite asking for feedback on my final interview, none was given. It felt as if what they were looking for in the interview did not match up with the skills the assessment highlighted.
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Pocket FM
Interview
Creative writers, beware! They are hiring "creative writers" but when you get the writing assessment it's titled Performance Marketing. As someone who is experienced in both creative writing and marketing, I know those are two VERY different things.
During the initial interview the position was described that I would be writing the actual audio story content and there would be minimal data analysis (10% to be exact). It sounded too good to be true...a job where I just get to be creative and write audio stories? When I asked more questions about the data analysis they made it sound similar to how a showrunner and a writer's room analyzes the previous TV season and figures out why views are dropping. I was told creative writers from every medium were being interviewed, people from TV, film, video games, etc.
Upon the writing assessment, the document is LONG. They are basically trying to teach you performance marketing in this document and see how well you pick it up. There is a creative writing element but one could hardly call it that. You're essentially writing and re-writing the story as a 30-minute audio advertisement. Then you are tasked with analyzing the performance marketing data to see where listeners dropped off and re-write the ad to drive conversions. This would be two separate roles in traditional marketing teams or agencies: a copywriter and a performance marketing data analyst. It seems like they are trying to get away with merging the roles and saving on hiring costs.
Finally, as of right now, they use AI generated voices and AI still images in their in-app content. There might be a market that tolerates that, but to me it was cringey and not something I'd be proud to attach my name or resume to. Hopefully, as they grow they will invest in quality visuals and pay for real voice-over actors. Right now it seems like they are trying to operate quickly and as cheaply as possible, which in my experience means overworked employees.