I was referred the position by a friend who found it on an alumni board. I emailed the recruiter with my resume. The recruiter never replied, but forwarded my info onto another recruiter, who scheduled a 10 min phone chat. That was extremely basic and she passed along my info again, and within about a week another recruiter set up a call with the hiring manager (30 min). This call went well, and then I heard nothing for 2 weeks. Then I got an automated message from the brassring alias that I was invited onsite to interview, with some documents to fill out. This was followed by an email from the original recruiter who asked my availability, and then yet another different recruiter scheduled the onsite. It was 5x45 mins with various Strategy people. They all had consulting backgrounds but did a good mix of interview style. 3 of them did case questions, which were eBay specific. The person I would have reported to did a lunch interview with me last, and said I'd hear something within 4-5 days. After a week, I emailed the most recent recruiter I'd spoken to for an update and heard nothing. I pinged the recruiter again after another week, and she replied for me to contact *my recruiter* the original one who had barely communicated with me - so I emailed him. Again, heard nothing for another week and sent a follow up. After another week (at 4 weeks out) I pinged the other recruiter and she said she'd contact my recruiter. Over the weekend I didn't hear from the original recruiter, but got an automated message from brassring that I wasn't selected. Then the following Monday I got an afterthought email from the original recruiter that someone else was chosen. The onsite experience itself was just fine and my interviewers were great, but I'm rating this negatively because it just isn't polite or classy to ignore onsite candidates for a whole month and let an automated system reject them. Beyond that it seems like eBay's recruiting in general isn't very buttoned up.

Overall, their strategy organization is filled with rude people who lack professional courtesy, both during the course of the actual interview, as well as in the aftermath. Two phone interviews with light cases. No numbers were used. Then I was flown in for an onsite. This is where the process fell apart. The first interviewer, a director, was extremely rude. He acted like he didn’t want to be there. The second he walked in his bad attitude was apparent. When he told me to tell him about myself he appeared to not be listening at all. And we then started a case. When I began the case he said: “I’m looking for hypotheses. Not analyses.” I think both his tone and word choice were a bit abrasive, but I abided by what he said and listed a bunch of hypotheses. He then asked me to list the ways in which eBay can affect pricing for sellers vs. customers. And I began my list. He then said “what else?” I asked him for clarification on whether he was referring to customers or sellers. He said he was referring to customers and then said: “I can think of three or four things off the top of my head.” I think this was uncalled for. During the end of the interview I rose to shake his hand and he said “I have to go.” It’s not like I was trying to carry on a conversation. I was just shaking his hand. His rude attitude is really unparalleled. I don’t know why I even bothered. In any case, after my interview with him I knew I wasn’t getting the job, and my desire for the job dissipated. This is despite my being pretty exhaustive as it relates to the case study-maybe except for the pricing portion. Soon after I started listing more factors he said “let’s end here.” The other people were okay. But the last person I interviewed with was a bit caustic as well. She also kept veering from subject to subject. For example, I would mention marketing or ease of use/aesthetics for the website and she would ask what I meant by this when I felt as though it was pretty self explanatory. I lost a bit of my structure in respect to this case-I probably should have stuck to a more solidified framework. But I also didn’t get to address all the things she asked me thanks to the fact that we kept going on tangents. The impression I got was that eBay’s strategy group consists of pretty rude people. Recruiter never bothered to call me or email me that I didn’t get the position. I got an automated workday email. I never followed up with the recruiter either because I was no longer interested in working there. The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth. If candidates take the time to come onsite and/or fly out you should give them the courtesy of personalized correspondence. He was also very hands off throughout the process. I only corresponded him via email, with one exception. It’s quite surprising to me that some startups have a more streamlined and professional recruiting process than eBay which has been around for over 20 years. Finally, eBay pays about 20 to 30K below market for this position which is something to take into account as well, and perhaps exacerbated by the high cost of living-I was quite surprised by this.