1) Intro call with recruiter
2) Predictive modeling take home
3) Onsite interview
4) Rejection email 3 days later
The interview went well and I thought they all seemed really nice on site. They emphasized real-world problems that they are currently faced all along at Instacart, which i appreciated, and I thought the process on site was overall really fair. The rest was fairly classic behavioral stuff. I wasn't too surprised about the rejection, it seemed to me they are looking for someone with some knowledge / background in supply / demand dynamics, which i didn't really have so much of.
However, its worth mentioning, things got really weird about a month after the interview... at this point I first received an email from their "automated artificial intelligence" recruiter (allegedly addressed from Instacart's head of data science), allegedly attempting to recruit me for the exact position I had recently been rejected. It seems Instacart was working with a third party company, whose goal is help client companies (i.e., instacart) with their recruiting efforts by using artificial intelligence to read resumes and automatically send recruiting emails to prospective candidates. This was obviously pretty weird to receive this email, given I had been rejected recently, but didn't think too much of it initially, and I replied politely, pointing out the mistake, suggesting to keep in touch, but with no response in turn from their head of data science.
What I really didn't like was to receive a subsequent message from a growth representative from this third party recruiting company instacart was working with. In this email I was told, completely unsolicited, about how amazing I am for getting an interview with instacart, then asking how my interview went with Instacart, and then asked if I got the feedback I needed about why I was rejected by Instacart. And, also, I'm told, this third party company not only wants to help companies, but also wants to help candidates too. Wow, thanks, third party company, how generous of you.
So yeah.. this is actually an incredible violation of privacy and as much as I like Instacart other ways, instacart should definitely know better. Instacart really has no business sharing the details whom they interview and then subsequently reject, as well as the personal background of such individuals (the third party company had many details of my background), without any permission whatsoever. And, then theres the simply ludicrous pretext of this email I received from this third party company, as if somehow I need their help in the first place. All this is really a question of professionalism and really not sure I'm left with the best impression.