Very negative interview experience. Had initial phone screening which was fine then had the phone interview. Lasted about an hour and 15 minutes and was extremely uncomfortable. I was asked questions about my family and personal life which I in no way felt comfortable answering at all. I felt like I was in a therapy session where the only thing discussed was bad and painful things about my past. However, at the end they said they would like to move forward and set up an in person interview and would contact me later that week but they never did. Even if they had I would not have gone through with it because I was so incredibly turned off by the phone interview. I get that they want to be thorough and find out who the candidate is but the way they went about it was inappropriate and not okay.
I am sorry to hear you had a negative experience. Our interview processes is intended to help both parties identify if Populus Group is the best choice for the candidate, not to make anyone feel uncomfortable. I will share this feedback to help us improve the interview experience for others. If you have additional feedback you would like to share, you can reach me at pgfeedback@populusgroup.com.
Other Technical Recruiter Interview Reviews for Populus Group
The process took 2 days. I interviewed at Populus Group (California, MD) in Mar 2026
Interview
Speak with recruiter for 20 minutes then if all goes well they schedule a formal interview with a manager. I did not get that far because I did not like their requirements. Recruiter was nice.
I applied online. The process took 3 days. I interviewed at Populus Group in Mar 2019
Interview
I had 2 phone screens; the first was with an internal recruiter, and the second with a hiring manager. Their questions were fairly standard for screening calls, but red flags about the job/company were raised during my process, including (but not limited to):
1. During my first screen, the interviewer literally said "recruiting sucks!" ... That's really great to hear when interviewing for a recruiting job
2. Both interviewers kept pushing the fact that this was a 100% sales job ... for some that might not be a big deal, but to me it was since I don't agree with the view of people=dollars.
3. During my second screen, I found out there was travel involved ... The job description didn't mention this, and the first interviewer didn't mention this
4. According to the job description, their training program is 3 weeks ... this isn't necessarily true. Based on what I was told, there's only a week of actual job training, and in order to switch over to salary you need to reach certain thresholds. I was told this process takes 3-6months.
5. At the end of my second screen, I was told I would hear feedback by tomorrow. I never heard from them again, whether it was yes or a no - even after I sent a message asking for an update.
6. Without outright saying the words, I was told working weekends isn't out of the norm, and even expected.
Ultimately, I had decided after the second screen that I wasn't going to pursue this job any further.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
1. Why recruiting?
2. Tell me about a failure, and how you handled it.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 days. I interviewed at Populus Group
Interview
Completely unprofessional. Did not send me a job description (when they said that they would). Told me it would only be one person interviewing me (there were two). Asked incredibly personal questions and tried to get me to change my answers to their questions multiple times.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Looks like you don't have any motivation in your life. Why not?
Technical Recruiter applicants have rated the interview process at Populus Group with 3.4 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 20% positive. To compare, the company-average is 55.6% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Technical Recruiter roles take an average of 7 days to get hired, when considering 5 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Populus Group overall takes an average of 14 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Populus Group as a Technical Recruiter according to 5 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 60%
Group panel interview: 20%
Skills test: 20%
Here are the most commonly searched roles for interview reports -