I applied online. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at SolarWinds in Jan 2025
Interview
The recruiter seemed unengaged during our conversation and rushed me through my responses. When they asked if I had any work samples, I directed them to my portfolio, which contains many examples of my work. However, after the interview, I received an email from them asking again if I could provide work samples, even though I had already mentioned my portfolio just ten minutes earlier. I went ahead and sent three samples despite them only requesting one. After that, they stopped responding entirely.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Name a time you worked with a team to reach a common goal.
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at SolarWinds (Austin, TX) in Aug 2015
Interview
Applied online, then HR recruiter scheduled an interview by phone. Got a quick phone call from HR. The first question was "how much do you make now" and the second was "what rate do you want?" I inquired if there were benefits, such as paid vacation or health insurance, for compensation. She wasn't able to go provide any information in that area. I asked if we could come back to the question and talk a bit more about the job itself.
We moved on to my experience. She asked about my last position (technical editor), and I described that experience. She then asked if I had any technical writing experience at all, at which point I explained that I did have many years of experience as a technical writer (it's on my resume). This was very disappointing because it seemed like she had not really read my resume.
She brought up the salary question again, and I gave her a range (which is the norm my area) for a senior contributor. At that point, she ended the conversation abruptly, probably due to budget constraints for the position (on the low side for this area) and not meeting the salary range they had in mind.
All-in-all, this phone screen seemed rushed and unprofessional. I didn't get a good impression of the company from this HR recruiter.