5 Arch interview questions

Arrived on time and checked in. The process was not described at the outset, it appeared they look for who would/should participate. The initial interview waited 30 minutes for the VP of Sales. He talked about how he dislikes his last position and liked this one. A few questions had to go to another meeting. Met with the HR person, very nice and interviewed as expected. Past, history, experience. Said they were trying to change the sales and marketing culture. Leadership was not associate friendly and they were 'working on it'. Then I was told I needed to come back because several people (including the CMO/head of sales 'Michael') were not available. About two weeks later the next interview was scheduled only a day or two prior. After arriving on time, waited 30 minutes and the current marketing director interviewed as expected. Appeared overworked, indicated a culture of off-hours work on a consistent basis. That person is no longer employed by the company. Explained that management was not always available and the VP position was needed. One of the three founders met with me and was interested, attentive and we had a good conversation. Provided the background of the organization and was looking for a culture fit, and again stressed the personality change in sales. Then the CMO/Head of Sales came in after waiting 45 minutes for him. He spoke very highly of himself, "here's what I have done without placing an add in the Scotsman Guide", looked at his phone the entire time except when answering three calls and excused himself after 10 minutes. He then asked me a question and said we needed to pick the interview back up after the weekend. Since we did not set up another meeting immediately - they could not make the time. After emailing HR and a few calls, they set a time about a week later for Monday at 8 am (which was non-negotiable and not a very good time for employed individuals looking for a role). The interview was with the CMO / Head of Sales 'Michael')- 3rd scheduled meeting. I waited again for 30 minutes when he came into the conference room. He said he just got back from skiing and he appeared not to know the subject of the interview (VP Marketing) and asked questions about administering their Salesforce implementation, data warehousing and if I could complete these without IT or outside assistance. Then I directly asked him if this was a VP Marketing role and while CRM and administration surely fall under the role, the technical nature of the questions leads me to believe they needed a configuration administrator, not a VP of marketing. He then said "I see where this is going", he got up and said, "thank you for coming in". I thanked him and proceeded to leave. I have to say many of the people were great to meet. However, it appeared HR and Management were trying to change the culture of marketing and sales with an injection of leadership with different personalities. The stated several times that they were trying to bring better-suited personalities into the organization and realized current management were potentially chasing them off. This does appear to be aligned with my experience.

I should have taken the negative reviews about their interview process seriously to save myself the time, resources, and effort I put into the interview process. The whole interview process was very unorganized and lacked communication. I applied online, and didn't get a response until 3 weeks later. It was an invite to speak with a recruiter via phone. The initial phone interview should have been a red flag for me not to proceed further because it was clear that the recruiter did not review my resume, nor did he allow for me to ask questions at the end of the call. I had to ask questions while he grilled me about my personality rather than my experience. He also did not know much about the role; he had claimed it was "new" and didn't have much information about it, the team, if it had any direct reports, pay range, etc. I didn't hear back from him for another 2 weeks, and when I received the email, it was for an in-person interview with the CMO and (surprise) Marketing Manager - which I was not aware of since the recruiter did not mention that there was a marketing manager that the VP, Marketing candidate would need to interview with. Instead of asking for my availability, the company decided to schedule me ahead of time for a specific date/time. Thankfully, I was available at the time. The actual in-person interview process was not a positive experience at all. The marketing manager was not aware that she would report into the VP, Marketing role. (Another red flag since it is clear that the CMO did not communicate this to her or the recruiter I originally spoke with on the phone.) The actual interview with the CMO was very unpleasant as he was clearly distracted by his phone, and he kept on answering texts and took SEVERAL phone calls during the interview all the while feigning apologies for taking the calls. The way he spoke to the people he had the calls with (and how they spoke with him in return) was highly unprofessional (he yelled, cursed, etc.) I left the interview feeling very disgusted and disappointed that I wasted my time, so to all prospects interested in pursing a role within this company - take heed to all the negative reviews about it. It's clear that the CMO has little-to-no respect for others, and does not communicate clearly and properly to others within the company.