After passing the initial phone screen, I interviewed with the hiring manager. The following day, HR called and said the hiring manager enjoyed speaking with me and they viewed me as a viable candidate.
Over the course of the week I was contacted by HR and asked to provide 5 references even before I came in for a face to face interview. I provided all 5. 3 of these references were either from a company President or Sales VP. They all responded positively (they sent me their responses) and congratulated me because they thought I found a job.
However, I didn't get a job. In fact I never got invited in for an interview. I followed up by email a couple of times in order to see where they were in the hiring process. My emails were ignored.
I am very upset. I burned 5 references, 3 of which were from very busy people. I am a fool for providing these references without an offer (lesson learned). However, I am writing to point out SkillSurvey, Inc's unethical hiring and interviewing processes.
I gave this company the names, email addresses, company names and phone numbers of 5 people. If they are not using this as part of the hiring process, what are they doing with this information? Furthermore, these references were not given informally. They were put into a database via a web form!
My advice, do not interview with SkillSurvey,Inc due to the reasons I laid out above. If you do interview, do not provide references until you get an offer.