Interview Experience: Would not recommend to anyone
After three separate interview processes with Penske over 18 months, I can confidently say this company has turned candidate disrespect into an art form.
Here's the breakdown of how they systematically wasted over a week of my professional and personal time...
Strike One: The Data Mining Expedition
Role: EV Charing / Energy Sector Project Manager
First red flag should have been obvious: they were more interested in picking my brain about competitors than discussing the actual role. What I thought was a strategic conversation about their EV charging expansion turned out to be a free consulting session. Spoiler alert: they had zero understanding of how to staff for innovation in this space.
Strike Two: The Vanishing
Role: AI Catalyst Product Manager ("Innovation" Lab)
Two-hour interview? Check. Three days over a weekend preparing a detailed presentation? Check. Driving two hours round trip to their office to present to six people who clearly hadn't read the brief? Painful, but check.
Their response after weeks of silence: "We're putting the position on hold."
This, despite their manager confidently stating they were "actively staffing" for their advertised AI products. Either their left hand doesn't know what their right hand is doing, or they're selling vaporware. Based on the lackluster energy I witnessed in their office, I'm leaning toward the latter.
Strike Three: Broken Promise
Role: Product Manager Position (Different Team, Same Chaos)
Foolishly gave them one last chance when their recruiter reached out again. Another 2.5-hour interview. Another 3 days of presentation prep over a weekend. Their promise this time? "We value your time and will get back to you within a week. We don't ghost candidates."
Two weeks of radio silence later, I had to chase down the recruiter myself only to learn—surprise!—this position was also "on hold."
The Verdict: Smoke and Mirrors
Penske's innovation and technology divisions appear to be elaborate theater productions. They're either:
A. Completely disorganized with no real hiring authority
B. Using interviews as free market research
C. Posting phantom jobs to appear innovative while having no intention of actually hiring (or worse, abusing H1B)
For Future Candidates: If you're considering a role here, know that you're likely interviewing for a position that doesn't exist, with people who don't understand the role, for a company that views your time as worthless.
They seem to be fishing for someone they can drastically underpay to speak tech buzzwords while delivering nothing of substance.
Three interviews. Six+ days of unpaid work. Zero professionalism.
Save yourself the time and look elsewhere. There are companies that actually respect candidates and have real positions to fill.