REA Group Interview Questions

Application

The process took 4+ weeks. I interviewed at REA Group (Richmond, VA (US)).

Interview

Great feedback throughout the process, fair and balanced approach. Was made to feel really comfortable and welcomed. I had to have two interviews and compete psychometric testing as well. Each interview went for about an hour. I was also able to ask questions.

Application

I applied online. The process took 2+ months. I interviewed at REA Group (Melbourne) in October 2020.

Interview

I had the first discussion with a recruiter. He was a very friendly person and described about REA group and role. He arranged the phone interview with 3 interviewers and even call me before the interview to check if I have any question.
During the interview, none of the interviewers bothers to give their introduction. They straight forward jumped in asking the questions. It looks like two junior interviewers prepared a bunch of questions and fighting to each other who would ask the question first. They were randomly moving from one topic to another based on their question list and looking for a specific answer to what they wanted. I lost interest in the middle of the interview and just waiting to finish the interview. I heard very good about REA, but after the interview, my impression was completely changed.
My advice to management was to provide the training to interviewers how to take the interview, give their introduction to the start of the interview and don't look the interviewee just as answering machine.

Application

I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at REA Group (Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)).

Interview

You will be interviewed by 2-3 peoples, HR, manager and senior colleagues.
It's on site interview, mostly questions about yourself, and some technical questions.

It can be up to 1 hour interview depends on the interview panel.

Interview

5 rounds of interviews:
- phone screen: asked about some general questions such as self introduction, expected salary, why do you want to leave current company, tech stack.
- coding test: Develop a terminal app. Using TDD to implement.
- technical interview: describe the projects you worked on before. Write a SQL query based on a given question.
- behavioural interview: what motivates you. Describe a challenge for you, how do you overcome it. Describe a scenario that you set a high goal, and you achieved it..

Application

I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at REA Group (Melbourne) in April 2020.

Interview

First step was a phone interview which was pretty standard. I then got invited to a 1h Zoom interview with the team and was asked to walk them through a research project I've done in the past. I thought it was a good chat but I never heard back from anyone after that which I think is a bit unprofessional when somebody makes it to this stage.

Application

I applied online. The process took 2+ months. I interviewed at REA Group (Melbourne) in March 2020.

Interview

Total of 3 rounds, first and second are behavioural and are done online. Seems strange to me that the first 2/3 of the interviews are not about how good you are as a software engineer. I mean I know how you are as a person is important but the focus seems to be way off. Most companies strike a balance between technical rounds and behavioural rounds.

Application

I applied online. The process took 5 days. I interviewed at REA Group in February 2020.

Interview

held at headquarters with team lead and talent acquisitions. General questions on how you would handle certain situations. I signed into the lobby and waited for my interview. Was taken to a room and was sat opposite two current employees of the business.

Application

I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at REA Group in February 2020.

Interview

In total the interview took about 2 weeks.
1. Phone interview, talk about some basic information
2. Online test, some SQL online questions, not very hard
3. Face to face interview at the office

Application

I applied through other source. I interviewed at REA Group.

Interview

Was approached by their talent rep via LinkedIn to gauge my interest in a role. There was a very specific requirement in the job description that I didn’t have and I highlighted this in the first phone call and subsequent interview but was told essentially that it was not that much of a problem. Fast forward to me getting rejected with the feedback given that they liked my answers and I asked all the right questions, but they advised that they wanted this specific skill which I had already told them initially I did not have. Huge waste of my time.

Application

I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at REA Group (Melbourne) in January 2020.

Interview

I failed at the 3rd round, pair programming. I assume that if I had passed it, there would have been 2 other rounds: technical and cultural rounds.

Rounds that I have gone through:
1. Phone Screen: the recruiter says hi and has a short chat
2. Code challenge: toy robot coding challenge
3. Pair programming: extend the toy robot code challenge with 2 of their developers

Pros:
- The recruiter named Alex was super nice and considerate even after she told me that I had failed the pair programming round
- Everything happened in a timely manner: feedback came back within a day or two, the scheduling went fast.
- The interviewers were on time, friendly and polite.
Overall, I had a very organized and professional interview experience with them.

Cons:
The pairing programming result came back negative with some words like "far from optimal", "tests were a bit of afterthought", "explanation was flawed."

I think that I kind of misinterpreted the goal of the pair programming interview, I thought it was more about collaborating and communicating, not just getting things done in isolation considering the given time. The fact is that I could not complete the first task they gave while the whole time I was refactoring the code and also trying to say out loud my thoughts, explaining why I went for a certain solution. The interviewers did not try to engage in the discussion if my solution was good or argued/explained otherwise. They just said like ok, go ahead. That said, I don't think it was a "collaborative" pair programming at all when you had to do your work and talked to someone else at the same time while they might think something else but did not want to discuss/clarify their points with you. I am a TDD developer, and I did so in the interview with tests coming first before I made any changes so the feedback like "tests were a bit of afterthought" is quite hard for me to take. After all, after years of working in the software development, I learnt to welcome other people's opinions even though they might be against mine, so it's pointless to judge if their feedback is right or wrong here, it is a subjective matter.

My tip is that you should complete at least a task in the pair programming session and try to ask the interviewers to see if they are ok with your solution, then do it quickly, don't waste time on clarifying your view on things beyond what is the simplest way to get it done.