I applied online, within a week I had my first interview over the phone with a very pleasant member of the HR department. (If there is one thing I would commend Switchfast for is their energetic and thoughtful HR team). After the initial phone screening, I was invited for an in office interview. A rather difficult technical assessment and brief tour were given. The tech assessment takes about an hour and has a wide range of problems that you might run into on the job. The issue with the tech assessment was that the same test is given to all applicants for all engineer/technician positions with no guidelines or expectations for what position you are applying to. There were questions that applicants with little experience with tech could figure out, and then there were questions designed for experienced technicians. I would have appreciated an assessment that only applied to the position I was applying for so that I had a better understanding of how my experience would suit the needs of the specific role I interviewed for. This ultimately leads to the biggest issue I had regarding my experience with Switchfast: lack of transparency (I will touch on this later). After the tech assessment I met with two members of the HR team and detailed my background and experience and answered any questions they had. I was invited back for the third and final interview with the Managers of the Intake Technician position and had about an hour long interview with them. They followed up on some more of my technical background as well as more specific details of the role (daily activities/encounters, work life balance, etc...). Roughly 3 days after the final interview I was informed that I did not get the position via email. I was disappointed that I was not selected, but I figured I could at least get some feedback on what areas I might need to improve upon to become a more competitive candidate for future opportunities. I emailed the HR team back citing that I was appreciative of their time and effort and was curious what I could improve upon. The response I was given was pretty much a slap in the face. While I am completely aware that companies have no obligation to provide feedback to applicants, I felt that I had established enough of a connection with the HR team (especially after having numerous discussions regarding transparency and communication) to seek out some information that might help me in the future either with Switchfast or other companies. The email I received even acknowledged this saying that my inquiry was "a fair question", however after acknowledging the validity of my question I was informed that "there are many different factors that are considered for the role and needs of the organization at this time... thank you..." And that was it, I came out of the entire process without any feedback or knowledge of what could make me a more competitive candidate. Like I mentioned earlier, I know I am not entitled to their feedback and that they don't have to give any regarding their decision to not hire me, I just felt that it was very disappointing in how the situation was handled regarding my previous positive experiences with their HR team.
If I were to make a recommendation to the Switchfast HR team it would be instead of a cookie-cutter type email informing applicants that they haven't been selected, maybe give them a more transparency into why they weren't selected, even if it's as simple as "we don't think your experience is as applicable to the role as other candidates".
All in all I learned a lot and I am glad I had the opportunity to see what Switchfast had to offer. The employees are all super friendly and genuine, and the company as a whole seems like an amazing place to start and grow a tech career.
Pros: Awesome HR team who seemed genuinely excited/passionate to meet me and learn about my background, pretty cool office space (dog friendly, open layout)
Cons: Lengthy technical assessment with no guidelines on which position you are applying to, communication
