I've never encountered the kind of rigidity in interviewing approach that I did at Rocket Lab, but after reading some of the negative reviews here, it seems congruent with others' experiences, and I understand much better. It seems that if you cannot conform absolutely to what Rocket Lab ordains, you will be destroyed and removed and they will churn through the next set of candidates to find what they want. Sort of like a crappy Weakest Link or Elon's Latte-Sipping Entitled People's Parade.
To preface, I'm an elder millenial by age, and have about 10 years of solid experience and compared to the job req., I think it's fair to say that I was highly qualified for the position I applied for (maybe even over qualified). But space companies are trendy, exciting and very in right now, so I figured why not.
Basically the HR recruiter contacted me with the usual, "Congrats, the team wants to interview you," email. Within the email the HR person asks you to go to a Calendly-sort of link to enter in your availability to schedule your next "interview(s)". (Notice there that there is no necessary/strict "virtual" component to that statement). So after we found a time that worked, the HR person follows up a confirmation email and post-marks it with a CAPITALIZED STATEMENT EXCLAIMING THAT I NEEDED TO MAKE SURE MY CAMERA IS ON FOR MY "VIRTUAL" INTERVIEW. Well, call me old school, but a) I don't have a super fancy up to date phone, and I don't have 5G either (call me cheap, too), so based on empirical history, video conferencing doesn't work for me, despite my best attempts and b) I guess for the initial 30 minute "hey, nice to meet ya, what's your experience, why are you looking for a new job" type of call, I guess I see video *necessity* as a little superfluous, without a lot of value added, (other than I guess, to confirm that you aren't a vampire or a robot). But again, old school here, I guess..
Anyway, I explain kindly, that I can't do video conferencing easily as my carrier has weak game, and my phone is 3 years old. So the first thing the HR fellow fires back with is a paraphrase of something like, "have ya tried installing the Zoom APP??" As if that is the magical cure that will increase my bandwidth exponentially to the levels required for video chat. Sure buddy, I know what apps are, I'm familliar with Zoom, and you're not getting the point. So I reply back calmly, that yeah, I've tried that before.
Anyway, we renegotiate a time when I CAN do a video conference, HR person books it. Then literally 3 minutes later I get a follow up email that I'm no longer being considered for the role. What. A. Joke. Of course, at this point I was likewise so put off, that I didn't care either.
It certainly for me speaks to the kind of rigidity and lack of human empathy and understanding that goes with what the majority of negative reviews of the company imply. Intolerance, iron-fist like compliance - "or else" type of management. So, I think they did me a favor. I guess it's kind of alluring to imagine that you are comparable to an Elon Musk type character, when you work as a mid level manager at a space startup. There's always been a ton of ego in engineering in general, but add startup, and space to that equation, and you've got a recipe for a whole new kind of arrogance that has yet to be fully understood by mankind. I imagine their Hinge profiles are off the chain popular, but probably without much followup.
If you're still reading, thank you, I had fun writing this. I promise, I'm not nearly as salty as I sound. Use this to your advantage if you interview here, and get yourself the hypist 5G smartphone with all the LATEST APPS so you can do a Zoom!! Have ya heard of it?? Also don't stray from the path or ask for assistance up the ramp cause it doesn't seem like you'll be accomodated, and they could care less.
