Melissa and Doug are a young, aggressive and dynamic company that prides itself on being casual, chaotic and growing fast. They pride themselves on having a karaoke machine and showing up to work in cutoffs or pajamas. The organization is really flat - there are 2 main departments; product development and sales. In the sales group, everyone has the same title and the same kinds of responsibilities with just 2 supervisors for the entire floor. The owners, Melissa and Doug Bornstein are in the office everyday and are very involved in the day to day operations of the company. The hiring process from screening call to final interview consists almost only of role play scenarios. For me, this was one of the most unconventional and bizarre forms of interviewing. The interviewer (HR or manager at Melissa and Doug) plays the role of a toy store owner who buys Melissa and Doug toys, but hasn't bought a best-selling item (Puzzle or plush toy) and I, the interviewee, need to sell the item to the store owner. In each scenario, I didn't do an amazing job, got feedback from the interviewer about what I did wrong and what I could have done better and in each round, I got progressively better. However, due to the nature of role play scenarios, it is hard to determine what exactly they look for in the interview, but by the final interview round, the company seems to be looking for overly aggressive people who can direct sell very well in every phone call they make to a prospective buyer. They look for people who are "genuine" on the phone with customers but who can turn around and make the sale of a product the priority on every call. In terms of timing, the entire process lasted about 2 weeks. I had a screening call, then came into one of their offices for a 15 minute role play, followed by another in-person group type interview at their HQ a week or so later. The first in-person interview was short and borderline rude. I was treated like a monkey, insulted directly to my face in a passive aggressive way by being asked "what do you expect to get from your education? ... at our company we have people who never graduated high school as well as people with 3 phd's so what's the point of you getting your MBA?" When the role play scenario was over, the guy got up and left the room so abruptly that I didn't even know the interview was over or if they wanted me to come back for another interview. The final group-like interview was chaotic and was always unsure of what to expect - I couldn't prepare very much for the interview other than look over their catologue and prepare basic answers to interview questions. There were a group of 5 candidates all for different positions, at the HQ and we all took basic knowledge tests at the company, followed by shadowing a sales rep for 45 minutes. We had to bring our own lunch (the final interview lasted over 6 hours) and after lunch we continued to shadow sales people for 30-45 minutes until we were to meet with the manager of the sales floor. At that point, we were led to an office where I met with the head of the sales group and Melissa, the owner of the company. The atmosphere was also very tense and was put on the spot to do a role play with the owner of the company. After the role play, they left the room for 5 minutes and when they came back, the interview was abruptly ended. The company is great for people who are so aggressive that they will do nothing to stop at getting the sales and numbers. No nice-ness, just aggressive, rude people who don't care about anyone except themselves and reaching their numbers. I got a sense that there are cliques in the company with certain people liking each other and others not. Also got the sense of false sincerity among the employees for each other.. as if they all had to be nice to each other just because. Not a fit for me - but potentially a good fit for someone who enjoys an aggressive, beat-em up, sell-your-mom-into-slavery-for-a-nickel kind of work environment (think wall street investment banker type).