I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Airbnb
Interview
Recruiter phone screen + 4 virtual interviews. Kudos to the recruiter, who was professional and an efficient communicator. No complaints there whatsoever. Also, all but one interviewer (see below) left time for questions, which was appreciated.
Two of my interviewers were cordial, but weren't prepared with questions and seemed disinterested in being present. They seemed stressed and burned out. They did not seem to be entirely listening to my answers (as evidenced by interviewers asking me follow-up questions that I had explicitly already answered). My take from years of conducting interviews: if you aren't prepared, you aren't able to accurately assess a candidate.
I was pretty disgusted by one of my interviewers, to the point that I'm coming here to write about it. He was dismissive, hadn't even looked at my resume, showed up late and ended our call abruptly early, talked over me twice, and frankly gave off "bro" vibes that made me feel that my voice would not be heard, valued, or considered. *They* rejected me (which I was not remotely surprised by given my interview experience), but I would never, ever have worked there given this experience. I hope my experience was an anomaly, but given some conversations with friends who left Airbnb, I'm afraid it may not be.
I applied online. The process took 6 weeks. I interviewed at Airbnb (San Francisco, CA) in Oct 2018
Interview
The process started with a phone screen with a quick decision to follow up. Another phone screen with a different person resulted in an onsite invitation. The onsite interview was broken up with 30 minute sessions with 5 people.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
General recruitment management questions (When have you had to manage up, manage out, process, etc.) followed by questions about impactful work and situations, what if you won the lottery and didn't have to work - what would you do? Some data questions around what metrics do you watch, why. Nothing out of the ordinary.
The odd questions came from people who were not in recruiting. They seemed fixated on questions that had little relevance and when answered, obsessed about narrow aspects of the questions that again had no relevance to your ability to do the job, collaborate or contribute.