I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at PEAK6 (Chicago, IL) in May 2022
Interview
I was "ghosted" during my first video interview with the team, which reflected poorly in my eyes as a candidate who stresses the importance of being on time, and living up to my promise of being available at that time slot which was during my work day with my current employer. I have unfortunately had an issue where I was not able to attend a video interview in the past, and candidates are largely dismissed from the process when this happens; they are never given a second chance to reverse this negative impression. HR acted like it was a regular occurrence and made no effort to truly apologize. They did, however, advance me in the process.
In my next interview, I spoke with a teammate who would act as an escalation point. He and I hit it off pretty well; I was able to answer his questions where he reflected a positive impression. He appeared satisfied with my approach to his questions, and I was moved on to the next round.
Next, I spoke with a manager, where I basically said nothing during our video interview. The manager was gobsmacked with my experience and basically passed me on to the next round without any discussion.
In the last round, I spoke with the upper management of the team. During these two back-to-back interviews, I expressed that I intended to learn, grow, and evolve in the position if it was offered to me. I feel that this was one of the only times I was able to reflect some of my career intentions, being that I was "ghosted" during my first video interview, and was not able to really reflect any of these points in my third interview with the manager.
I was turned down by management because my interests could not be satisfied. I was able to tell that I was not selected because I was able to see that HR relisted the job posting on LinkedIn two days after my final interview. I personally reached out by email for a status on the position after witnessing this, and it took HR some time to reply.
On it's face, the person who accepts this role should not aspire to grow upon their career and skillset while working for this organization because the organization is not poised to promote career growth or opportunity for advancement. It would be career regression....unless you're into that.
I'm glad they were able to admit this since most other organizations aren't able to do so. I have to give them props in this regard.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Explain your troubleshooting style to me.
Scenario question - you have a global network outage; a CEO who needs email help on his/her laptop; an all-hands video meeting that was scheduled to begin 15 minutes ago is currently down; and a team of users who have lost all of their mapped network drives. How do you prioritize these technical situations being thrown at you all at once, and explain your decision(s) why.
Where do you see yourself in 3-5 years? Because, let's face it....no one stays at any employer for longer than 3-5 years....
What interested you in PEAK6?
Thank you for taking the time to review your interview experience with us. We're working on improving our recruiting and interview process and your honest review helps us do that. If you have any additional feedback, please feel free to reach me at hr@peak6.com.
Thanks,
Kimbra Steinhoff
VP of Human Resources