Submit resume on company website, 2 phone interviews followed by a full day onsite interview, which consists 4 one hour back to back interviews.
The interview were not that hard, However, there are some extremely serious issues regarding the entire interview process. Which I will describe in detail below, If Pocket Gems wants to continue delivering good games, staying in game industry and want to get the most qualified candidates, this must be changed, or no one in the future will be interested in your company!
First of all, before I started applying, I've heard numerous negative feedback regarding the recruiting process of Pocket Gems. For example,leave candidates hanging,ignore emails,rejecting candidates without a reason(even if the candidate answers the interview question flawlessly), not replying candidates thank you letter(this is really rude and unprofessional) I was like, fine, I will just give it a try, it won't hurt anything and there's nothing to lose, so I went ahead and submitted my resume.
Passed both phone interview and did an full day onsite interview, 2 days later I was informed that they decide not to move to the offer phase. That was totally fine with me, because for one of the interviews during the onsite I didn't do really well and I understand the bar is high.
Rejection is really normal for job seekers, but at Pocket Gems, some of the interviewers will evaluate your skills not by what you know or how you performed, but by some other factors.
<<<It is gender discrimination>>>
I know this is a really serious topic. and let me explain what has happened and what I've heard.
As I mentioned, rejection is really normal, and personally I don't mind getting rejected if it's due to my lack or preparation or I'm not skilled enough. What can absolutely not be tolerated is the rejection is due to candidate's gender, skin color, race or religion. If the interviewer wants to fail you, he will find a way regardless
Okay, you may want to ask: what was going on?
First of all, I've about 7 friends who have applied Pocket Gems in the past, and surprisingly all of my male friends got rejected and all my female friends got the offers. Initially it didn't really bother me, because it's possible that all the my female friends are super talented. However, later on my male friends got offers from Google, Facebook and Amazon, then I started wondering what's going on there. I've done interviews(both phone and onsite) with Google, amazon, Facebook and LinkedIn in the past and I have a fairly good insight about the difficulty level of their interview. Pocket Gems' interview is way, way easier than FLAG's. Furthermore, I know some of my female friends really well. I don't mean to praise myself, but my technical skills and background is way stronger than theirs.
It's not a coincidence.
This is a common sense, if my male friends can get offer from Google or Facebook, it is crystal clear that they are really talented software engineers. I've talked to all of them, and the feedback I got from my male friends were all negative
all of my male friends told me that some of the interviewers were really rude and disrespectful, and they felt the onsite interview were so tough, when stuck, interviewers will not give any hint nor talk with you, there was no communication at all. some of them just keep yawning and playing their cell phone, it was almost impossible to pass.
However, on the other hand, the feedback from my female friends were generally positive, they told me that the onsite interview was not that tough, and it was a great experience, all interviewers were really friendly and will provide helpful hints when stuck.
At this point, you probably see what's going on.