I had two phone interviews (one with HR and another with Controller), an in-person interview with the CFO and Controller, references check, and background check, all over the course of about a month. At the end of the process, the 3rd party recruiter let me know that SDC would not be giving me an offer due to “my lack of experience”, and that SDC told him to let me know. My guess is that they liked someone else better than me, and that person accepted. That’s all part of it, but I felt like it was a bit unusual to go through the process of a background check if SDC was not committed to making an offer. I also thought it was weird that they did not contact me directly to let me know their decision, especially given the long duration of the process and the large amount of time and money I had sacrificed as part of the process. Abruptly cutting off contact with me also seemed a bit shortsighted given that they are in a rapid growth phase right now, have had trouble finding accountants (from what they told me), and are likely to need more accountants in the near future. They also were trying to find a staff accountant, in addition to the senior accountant position I was interviewing for, and I actually would have been open to the idea of taking the staff accountant position just to get my foot in the door, had it been brought up to me.
However, despite some of the warning signs that this process revealed to me, the company seems like a cool place to work, with a lot of youth and energy. The Controller and CFO both seem very smart, and the other accountant I talked to also seemed smart and easy going. Based off some of the reviews on Glassdoor, it seems like there are some definite growing pains at the company right now, but that is probably to be expected at a startup. It’s definitely not a company without risks, but it does seem like an exciting place to go if you’re an accountant who is seeking something different and less traditional than your typical “safe” accounting jobs. Just be prepared for a long interview process, and don’t put all your eggs in the SDC basket, because you may wind up not getting an offer in the end, despite all signs to the contrary.