I applied online LATE (overnight) on a Thursday evening. Got a call the very next day (Friday) from a practice manager at a nearby hospital I had applied to, who did a quick and easy phone interview to ensure I was a normal person. She then set up a personal interview time for the following day (Saturday). I am still with the company now, and should have seen the red flags right from the beginning. Turnover is crazy for this company. Not 30 minutes after speaking with her on the phone I get another call requesting a phone interview from ANOTHER local Banfield. Clearly, they do not communicate, and were desperate to jump on a decent applicant. Confused, I told the guy that I had just set up an interview at the other location for the following day, but would be happy to do another phone interview if I had better chances by speaking with multiple people in the company. He sounded disappointed that another hospital PM had reached me first, and backed off.
By the time I had agreed to an interview at Banfield, I was desperate to get hired somewhere. I had interviewed at other pet hospitals locally, but most take their time with hiring, are slow-paced, and didn't pay as much as Banfield. I arrived overly prepared for my interview. The interviewer was the practice manager, who took me into an exam room for the interview itself. She has since left the company and after working for her, I can say she was a terrible practice manager and human being. During the interview, she asked me your standard behavioral questions straight from a printed booklet of questions to ask during an interview. She asked practically the same question in three different ways, which made coming up with a variety of answers very difficult. Once we were done with that, she gossiped about some of the people who worked there, in particular asking me if I could handle a doctor who was known to be condescending to her assistants.
When we were done, she said she would contact me to set up a working interview. Since I was tired of waiting around for interviewers to make decisions and was also overly prepared, I let her know that I had brought a set of scrubs along and would be willing to do a working interview on the spot if she were open to the idea. She was. I went to my car, got my clothes, changed in the bathroom, and did a working interview, which consisted of me talking with the shift lead and him asking me about my prior experience working in veterinary hospitals. Then I met the team and stood around awkwardly making conversation for about 15 minutes. During that time, the shift lead and PM went back into the exam room to talk, and after a short time told me the working interview was over and they wanted to speak with me in the exam room again. They offered me a position on the spot, with a starting pay of $12.25/hour (I had told her I wanted somewhere between $12-$15/hour. I accepted and she immediately got my information for ordering scrubs in my size, then set up an appointment to fill out paperwork for a later date.
Start to finish, application to offer, I got hired at Banfield in less than 36 hours.