The day of my in-person interview was interesting. I was escorted by JC of the talent team to the breakout room for the interview. JC is one heck of an asset. If I were to start another company, he would be my first hire. The first member of the management team came in and began his interview. He was passionate about Zillow and it showed. The second member of the management team followed. He was the hiring manager and it was quickly clear – he was the decision maker. He walked into the room holding my resume and looked up and stated, “Can you tell me who you are again. I do lots of theses phone calls each week.” Prior to moving back to the PNW, I was an executive for two companies with 2.5X the market cap of Zillow. This is not bravado, but to give perspective. Having worked and sold to c-suite players to most of the Fortune 100, I understand this approach. Some experienced sales professionals like to begin meetings by putting the other party on their heels. I will say I was not prepared for this. Zillow was on my short list of companies to work for after having exited a company I started because of the leadership team and the leading edge culture they had developed. I immediately took his posturing as one of arrogance. It was the opposite of what I know of Rich Barton. It reeked of overconfidence. Notwithstanding the message it sends to less experienced candidates, the hiring process is not a corollary to negotiating within the sales process. Companies, especially those who are in the consumer market like Zillow, should always ensure the hiring process represents the best of their company. For those 99% of candidates who aren’t tendered an offer of employment – you still want them to use your services. After the hiring manager left, the gentlemen running the business walked in and started it off by stating, “I usually only jump in for like five minutes as I leave the hiring to the manager responsible for the direct report.” Understandable view as you want to trust your managers as a leader. I will say the collective experience is one that comes off a little pretentious. It’s hard to reconcile that Rich Barton founded Glassdoor to bring transparency to corporations and more specifically to provide employee candidates a ‘view’ into organizations they may want to join. Think about it, I can read from current and former employees about their respective experiences within Zillow. What I can’t do is ask any potential peers about their experiences during the onsite interview. I can’t ask any potential cubicle neighbors about the micro-culture within a department, which is always a reflection of department managers and directors. My point: your founder created Glassdoor to reduce opacity within corporations and yet as you have scaled it appears you are keeping candidates at arm’s length. I am a firm believer all companies should allow a team to interview candidates. Specifically it should include team members who would be a peer to the potential hire. The candidate can garner far more recent information about a company’s culture, business processes, vision, from current employees rather than opinions expressed on Glassdoor. The fact there are only three members interviewing a candidate, all managers, can lead to groupthink (Irvine). Add this to the utilization of an ATS that purposefully keeps Zillow contact information close to the vest and it all feels very ostentatious. If readers want to know if I was hired, I don’t think I was hired. At least no one in recruiting followed up with me to let me know. I did send an email to JC and asked that he let me know of feedback he may have received. JC replied that he had received positive feedback but that he would have an answer for me in a couple of days. It’s been much longer than that. I guess I could log into Jobvite to tell me I wasn’t selected, but that’s really not necessary. Clearly I wasn’t a fit and that’s OK. I'm interviewing them as much as they are interviewing me. Based upon other reviews here it seems quite common that Zillow doesn’t like to share bad news. It’s really not that difficult. It should be pragmatic. Hiring isn’t objective. It’s subjective and it’s usually because there is some sort of emotional connection between the candidate and the hiring team. If it’s not there, for whatever reason, just explain that to the candidate and move on. Please don’t think a candidate should be responsible for checking with an ATS as to their candidate status. You’re better than that. There is no need to re-invent the wheel. Zillow has a great leadership team, a great product, and a framework for success. This review isn’t to discourage any prospective candidates and it probably won’t. Zillow will continue to lead their segment, but it may be wise to look at other companies who are also leading edge when it comes to culture. Zappos has a core value that may fit well here: “Be humble.”