I was contacted by a recruiter regarding my interest. I spoke with the recruiter for almost an hour and she immediately moved forward and scheduled me with the hiring manager.
I went into this process with some reservations about the company. Mainly, the company is headquartered out of India. The recruiter did her best to tell a good story about the CEO moving to the bay area and the focus being on growing the bay area office. But, that doesn't change the fact that the company is ran out of India and majority of the employees work out of India. The role that I would be hired for would be responsible for a team in India. I also asked about woman in leadership and she struggled to give me examples other than the head of HR.
I reserved my questions about the company for the hiring manager. Unfortunately, I wasn't given a chance to ask these questions.
My first phone screen with the the hiring manager resulted in a no show. I waited 20 minutes for him to show up after attempting to contact the hiring manager and the recruiter directly. Not long after I received an apology for the hiring manager stating he was stuck in a critical customer escalation and he asked to reschedule. Giving him the benefit of the doubt I rescheduled. The second phone screen resulted in him being 20 minutes late.. showing up right before I hung up. At this point he has wasted 40 minutes of my time and he still wanted to move forward with the call. Overall, i felt he was distracted and disinterested in the things I had to say. He only ended up asking me questions for 10 minutes at which point he gave me the opportunity to ask my questions. At no point did he really convey any excitement about why I should want to work for Freshworks. Although he was 20 minutes late, he gave me a hard stop and didn't offer to make up the time that he wasted.
I emailed the recruiter and removed my candidacy for the role. I am no longer interested in working for Freshworks. As a candidate, the hiring process/experience sets the tone for what I can expect from a company. This company showed nothing but a lack of organization and failed at conveying interest in filling a crucial role. Coming from the Customer Success department this is extremely concerning.