There was a very time consuming online form, linked to on the Detroit Labs website, consisting of several essay questions and a couple math problems. Despite the fact that this company claims they don't take resumes, the form started with either attaching a copy of your resume or importing it from your LinkedIn account, but no additional sections for work history, references or background check authorization were on there.
There was a single person in charge of the Apprentice program and the application process, who never responded to any messages and ignored my attempts to reach out to them. It would have been common courtesy to at least send a pat response saying you won't be communicating with applicants, if that was the case, instead of ignoring an applicant completely.
I was surprised that I received an email (one of 40 people selected) inviting me for an in-person interview, given how I was ignored prior to this when I reached out to them. The email invitation explained that 40 applicants were being divided into groups of ten to come in for a group interview, during a one hour time slot on a weekday evening, to be interviewed by several Detroit Labs employees. It stated the goal of the interview was to find out things such as how you learn and work through difficulties. When I showed up with my group, we were told the interview was essentially going to be "speed dating" with ten pairs of Detroit Labs employees, who we would spend just several minutes with before we moved to the next station. We (the applicants) were all there on time, but they started late, cut it short, and did not let us meet with all 10 pairs.
The questions were not what I expected. The employees interviewing us seemed to have nothing with them to refer to, about the individual applicants, other than a checklist with our names on it, which few made any attempt to keep out of our view. So we had to sit there literally watching the interviewers write their notes about us, right in front of our face, as we were talking. Why didn't they have laptops with them to work off of (it's a tech company after all, why aren't they using a better system?) or printouts of the lengthy GTKY that we completed, to refer to when interviewing us? It seemed like we were there just to be looked up and down, so they could make sure we were young like them and wore the same kind of clothes. It was an awful vibe for a lot of us, and seemed that either they already knew who was proceeding to the next step, or they just wanted to see if you looked the part.
It did not seem like any senior or more experienced employees were there to interview us, just mostly newer hires and others who recently went through another apprentice program there. At least half of the questions were just dumb. Maybe two Detroit Labs employees I talked to actually asked good questions or made some effort to actually dig a little deeper. And what was with all of the super limp hand shakes? Very odd. The person in charge of the whole process was there but spoke to the applicants as little as possible, and walked around while we were doing the "speed dating" interviews.
Emails inviting 24 of the 40 interviewed to the technical interviews, being held the following week, were sent out within a couple hours of the last round of "speed dating" interviews being completed, suggesting there was not much thought given to what was said during the "speed dating." Or maybe only the people who were scheduled for the first evening of this were the only ones being seriously considered.
Many interview questions seemed to focus on how you would give feedback to other people or what kind of feedback you expect to receive. For a place that seems so concerned about discussing feedback, why don't they ask for references and talk to other people that applicants have actually worked with, and listen to real feedback about the person who is applying to work for them? And why do they ignore applicants who were rejected, when they politely ask for feedback about why they weren't selected?
It was also alarming that at this point in the process, there still was no background check of any kind on the applicants and it seems there never is one. I can't believe any company would take on this risk. A lot of criminals and violent, abusive people are very charming at first. Is Detroit Labs really risking subjecting their employees to working with or training alongside someone with a known history of violent outbursts, sexually harassing or assaulting others, stealing, etc. because they don't want to bother paying for a criminal background check or asking for references?
