I applied to an SDR position at OwnLocal in May of 2016. A few days after I applied online, I received an email asking me to do a project for them, with a due date to email my work back to them. The project consisted of two parts, first typing a mock email conversation between me (in the SDR role) and a potential client, and second, making out a cold call script. In total, the project took me about 4 hours to complete. I think this is longer than what it should have taken, but I wanted to make sure my work stood out from the other candidates. I emailed them the project, and a few days later I received an email saying that they were really interested in me and wanted to set up a phone call. A few emails back and forth were exchanged, and I had a phone interview set up for the next week. The phone interviewer was awful, and when I say awful, I mean AWFUL. The first words that come out of his mouth when I answer are "Hey, everything that could go wrong has gone wrong, my computer crashed and I don't have you're project or resume with me, so you're going to have to work extra hard to impress me right now. You obviously impressed me with your project or else I wouldn't be talking to you now, so now you need to impress me on the phone". This was the first strike in my book. I was floored. I wasn't sure how to react. Why continue with the interview when you don't have the project that you made me do or my resume in front of you?? This threw all of the professionalism out the window. Luckily, I was prepared and was in front of my computer with my resume, the company website and my project already pulled up (Something I do for all phone interviews) so I quickly read over my resume for him and talked about my project a bit. He seemed to be impressed by this, so I was feeling a bit better. He then asks me why I want to work for a startup like OwnLocal. I tell him because I love the startup culture, they typically have good benefits, and I'd like to work my way up. He stops me when I say "work my way up" and proceeded to explain to me that they're not looking for people who want to work there way up, they are looking for people who are really good at the role they apply for, and that's all they want them to do. This was strike two. I'm not going to start a career at a company that doesn't encourage growth or promote employees. I don't want to be an SDR for the rest of my life, so that means either being promoted over time, or leaving. I guess OwnLocal doesn't like people to stick around after they've maxed out at their current role. Later in the interview, he tells me that his current role is an SDR. Why do they have someone who is not in a form of leadership doing phone interviews? This was very "off" and out of line with other companies in my book. It could create a conflict of interest. What's his motivation for hiring good people who could potentially outperform him? It just didn't make sense to me. Strike 3. I received an email a few days later saying they were looking at other candidates and they thanked me for applying. In the end, I think the main problem with OwnLocal is leadership and professionalism. From the other interview experiences I've read online, it seems like this place is sort of a "Frat house" culture per-say, that just happens to work on tech. Unless you are the exact type and personality of person they're looking for, they don't want you, regardless of your resume or past experiences.