I applied through a referral link and received a followup from Recruiting within two days. The first interview was behavioral with Recruiting focused on my background and skills (4 days after applying). The next interview was scheduled with the Hiring manager three days later and focused on similar areas of experience, goals and accomplishments (30 minutes). The next interview was about a month later due to holidays and vacations and was with the VP of Customer Success (30 minutes). Two weeks later I did the virtual "onsite" with two different members of Samsara leadership (RVP of Sales and Director of CS). Each was 45 minutes and and focused on the "STAR" framework. They wanted examples of addressing client risk, flagging issues early and setting up a project plan. The final round was a week later and they gave me about 3 days to complete a take home project to prep for an at risk client. I then presented for 30 minutes to the VP, CS and had followup questions on my thought process and planning. The offer came about four days later. You have a recruiter that handles the whole relationship from start to finish and meets with you before and after every step to provide guidance and also feedback on prior rounds. There were no surprises and this was the most professional, authentic interview process I have been a part of.

The recruiter found me on LinkedIn and though I wasn’t initially interested in the role, I was willing to chat with her and see if my values aligned with the company’s direction. I was very impressed with the recruiter. We had a great conversation, we connected on several different levels, and I actually became interested in the role because of her personality. Next was the call with the hiring manager. I’d gotten her name ahead of time, attempted to connect with her on LinkedIn. I was ignored. At first I assumed maybe she didn’t use the platform often, but an hour before my interview I’d seen she had been reacting to other posts and posted an update about her recent promotion. I figured maybe she was the type to wait till after the interview to connect. I still thought this was strange because any other organization I have interviewed with has taken the time to look at my LinkedIn profile at a minimum. She didn’t even do that. The call with the hiring manager was the complete opposite from the call with the recruiter. I could hear her typing the entire time, she was disengaged from the conversation, and asked very basic behavioral interview questions. For a role at this level, I would expect to be discussing process improvements, corporate strategy, best practices for retention, etc. For a company looking to scale and for a HM who had 8 years of experience as a manager at Accenture, I expected a much more strategic conversation —- instead it was basic stuff like tell me about your most difficult customer. I did try to liven up the conversation but she didn’t respond well to that. I felt like she’d already had the role filled and was just going through the motions with me. Based on the conversation we had, I don’t believe she looked at my resume and for those wondering, she never did look at my LinkedIn profile. I’m in a very good position with my current company, I honestly felt like I dodged a bullet here. This was a complete was of my time. I even ended the interview with asking if there was anything I’d said that gave her hesitancy about hiring me for the role and her response was, “no, I have everything!” I received a rejection email the next day. A little honesty from the HM would have been appreciated. At least the recruiter was diligent. She is the only reason I would ever give this company a second chance. I spoke with a friend of mine who also interviewed with them back in November for a technical PM role. He said the exact same thing. Recruiter was awesome, HM sounded like a robot and was very disengaged. I shouldn’t be surprised, the responses on Glassdoor are all the same canned response too. Must be a bunch of bots working there. Advice to the hiring managers at Samsara: The future is human. Stop conducting interviews like robots and have an actual conversation about the challenges your business is facing if you want real solutions for your growing pains.