Hearst interview questions

I had the opportunity to meet with a recruiter from Hearst to interview for a position for their SFGate department. While the interview process started strong and required much of my time, by the end it was extremely unprofessional. From the start of the interview process I was reassured from the hiring manager that they will stay transparent, and honest throughout the whole process and would appreciate if I did the same. She asked me very basic questions like why I’m interested, what my experience is, and if I was in the middle of interviews with anyone else. Out of respect, I gave her complete honesty because of what she said earlier. Looking back now, she wasn’t being as transparent as she preached. I was then given a second interview with a director. The interview lasted 30+ minutes with a lot of very basic questions relating to my experience, as well as my editing style. I’m assuming it went well because I was then assigned the edit test. By the time I was done with it, it was 6 pages long, and filled with several of my original ideas. After that was sent out, I was sent an invite for a final interview with one other person. This is when things started to get extremely unprofessional and inconsiderate. Not only did this employee show up 10 minutes late, but she was very clearly in pajamas and unprepared. She admitted to not knowing anything regarding my resume, or even looked at it; yet made sure to compliment me on my edit test. When it was my turn to ask questions, she again admitted to not knowing any of the answers; the interview lasted around 20 minutes since, again she was unprepared. Finally, after a couple days I made sure to send out some e-mails asking for an update. I did this several times and emailed all 3 employees, yet no one could bother to send me a simple response. I did this for about 4-6 weeks and to this day, no response. I understand not responding to a candidate after one interview, but to put me through the whole process, plus an edit test yet still can’t be bothered to send a simple rejection letter is highly unprofessional, and inconsiderate. If a candidate did that, they would never be allowed an interview again. I highly recommend anyone interviewing for SFGate to not waste your time or energy. At least at a different company they will respect you enough to send you a rejection letter rather than just dismissing you. I have had several positive interview experiences with their competitors like Meredith, and the New York Times. I highly recommend you check them out instead of wasting your time, and energy with Hearst.

I created and sent in an application, then received an email to set up a virtual interview. And had the interview virtually a few days later. It was a fairly decent experience.