I applied to this position because I believe in providing students with access to a high-quality education. At first, it was exciting to research SchoolAdmin and see that this is essentially their mission. They also seemed to offer a fair salary, benefits, positive culture, and they had many promising reviews from their clients. As someone with four years of experience in the field of education (including edtech), I wrote a personalized cover letter to accompany my resume and was pretty hopeful about this opportunity, even though it was basically a glorified customer service role. A few days later, I was selected for an interview, and that’s when I started to second-guess myself. The lengthy process involved a survey, a 15 min. phone call, a second 15 min. phone call (with someone else), a 1 hour cognitive test, a 1.5 hour Zoom call (with 3 people), and a second 30 min. Zoom call (with a different group of people). The phone calls went well enough (Aaron was especially great to speak to), and I successfully completed the cognitive test. It was during the Zoom call when things went down hill. Let me start by saying that from the moment I turned on my camera, I was met with 3 of the most miserable looking people I have ever seen. If they liked their jobs whatsoever, it certainly didn’t show, and the general attitude came across as, “Let’s get this over with”. I’m a happy, congenial person so I found this to be very intimidating and off-putting from the get-go. The hiring manager then proceeded to tell me that if, at any point during the interview, they no longer felt that I was a good fit for the position, she’d end the interview early — essentially sudden death. Well, I lasted about 50 min. of the scheduled time. I was polite, dressed professionally, and able to answer the majority of her questions with the exception of a few that I don’t think should’ve been deal-breakers. For the life of me, I still cannot guess what exactly they were looking for. I was definitely nervous, but I thought I’d made it clear that I was genuinely passionate about education and more than qualified for the position. One employee did reveal the dreaded, "We're like a family here", so maybe I was missing certain cult-like criteria. Afterwards, I sent an email thanking everyone for their time and asking if they could provide any feedback as to why they decided to end the interview early. There was no response. SchoolAdmin might be a decent place to work (I’ll never know), but I wouldn’t recommend applying unless you have the time/stamina to invest and you’re ok with the obscure logic behind their hiring process.