I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Varsity Tutors (New York, NY) in Nov 2024
Interview
I received an initial email that my profile had been selected to move forward. Then I had a call with the talent recruiter, who shared that the first step to move forward was to do a product exercise/assignment. About a week later I delivered a presentation covering the assignment. The work had been triple-checked with peers and mentors. Three days after delivering I received feedback.
The process was fine, but the response from the hiring manager was unprofessional and disrespectful.
"- Federico's assignment was good but not quite at our bar.
- There was a lot of fluffy content which was not concise and directly
what we were asking for in all cases.
- I was confused about how the content outline (slide 2) mapped to the
questions I asked, so it was difficult to follow in terms of looking
for the exact 4 questions I was evaluating him on.
- I didn't like the generic imagery added to the deck. I thought it
was non-value add and overly polished. I would have preferred the
candidate focus on the substance rather than look."
This should and could have been handled professionally. Instead, they just take the ideas and criticize without even understanding what was delivered. My outline - slide 2 - was mapped to the four questions they aked. To focus on 'not liking the images' was absurd. To call my work 'fluff' is an utter lack of respect. They are outsourcing ideas through interview cases. I see another review saying the same. At least have the balls to speak to the candidates and let them present instead of sending this type of feedback hiding anonymously behind the recruiter of the company.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Assignment Deliverables
1. Choose a (free to test and look at) Varsity Tutors competitor of your choice. Show and tell us how you think about what they’re offering to their customers.
2. How would you describe this competitor’s conversion model, i.e. how they attract prospective clients and convert them?
3. What are three step-function hypotheses to improve the competitor’s conversion, and a coinciding test (idea) for each hypothesis?
4. How would you describe Varsity Tutors’ conversion model? How might we make it more efficient or grow it?
I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Varsity Tutors
Interview
Strange experience.
First - don't expect them to adhere to any timelines they give you. I was referred by someone, and they told him they would reach out to me the next day. I did not hear from them for over a week. I was also told after my second interview that I would hear back by the end of that week at the latest, and instead I didn't not hear back for two weeks.
The interview with the hiring manager was disorganized. He clearly had not even glanced at my resume. He spent time explaining very basic things about marketplaces to me (I have years of marketplace experience, including at two other tutoring marketplaces). He was almost ten minutes late, I tried to do a short intro (as is standard in every interview I've ever been in), and he cut in after everything I said to the point where by the time my "intro" was finished, we'd run out of interviewing time. Perhaps this is his preferred interview style, but given that it deviates so much, he should make that clear.
In the end, he said he was definitely going to move me forward.
However, a recruiter reached out two weeks later with a bland template email thanking me for my time and boasting about how competitive their process is (how many applicants they get, etc).
I would not apply here again. If you do, perhaps you will have better luck outside of the product team.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Lots of questions digging into my resume, basically nothing else asked.
