‘Unicorn Culture at Its Best’: The Weirdest Experiences Interviewing at Startups

You haven’t lived until a dog has released a loud, stinky fart during your job interview. The wacky startup interview is a rite of passage in the San Francisco Bay Area; after all, there are more than 5,000 startups here, according to Angel List. Some are actual technology companies, while others are only tech startups in name. And each one employs people who often went through all kinds of hoops to land their roles.

We asked Bay Area locals* to tell us their best — or worst, depending on your outlook — stories from these employment discussions.

“The woman [interviewing me] insisted I had an autoimmune disease and scratched my arm to prove it. It was pretty shocking and—now looking back—probably illegal.”

No shoes necessary

“I once had an interviewer take off his sandals and put his bare feet on the desk. The nasty, dirty bottoms of his feet faced me as I attempted to answer his questions.”

—Cindy, vice president of marketing

The interview that wouldn’t end

“I interviewed for Hack Reactor a few years back for an executive-assistant role. I had to do a completely ridiculous question-based test beforehand. I was then asked to come on-site; it was scheduled incorrectly, but they decided to move ahead anyway. I was asked to do weird hypothetical exercises that made zero sense, like figure out the lunch order for an executive without knowing anything about him — and they even said he was a very picky eater. Once I was truly fed up, I declared that I was done, [but] they said, ‘No, you have another hour to go.’”

—Senior recruiter

Lizzo’s right: truth hurts

“I had an interviewer flat out start crying mid-interview and then told me that ‘I don’t want the job’ because it’ll make me cry like her. ‘They lie about it being a startup, as you still have to come in from nine to five instead of whenever you want.’ I agreed that I didn’t want the job — but didn’t say it was [for] other reasons.”

—Francesca, growth and talent lead

Sears is still going places

“One time, a recruiter for this startup I was interviewing with began yelling at me because I didn’t share his assessment of Sears being a great company. I think that now with time, my opinions played out pretty on point.”

—Tod, techie turned self-published author

Beers, bros, and bouts of Mario Kart

“Eons ago, I interviewed with a company [that was] run out of a studio loft in SOMA. The two founders sat me down around the bar in the kitchen at 11:30 a.m. and handed me a beer. After about 15 minutes of talking, they brought me into the living room, and we played Mario Kart. I won, but I didn’t get the job.”

—Mark, head engineer and internal project manager

‘Unicorn culture at its best’

“As I was settling in to pair with the outgoing engineer I would have replaced, one of the interviewers left the conference room, grabbed his snowboard, and proceeded to jump with it from desk to desk. [He was] laughing maniacally, knocking people’s keyboards and mice off their tables. [The other employees] all just passively pushed away from their desks, then continued working once he’d jumped their desks. I later learned he was their star Javascript engineer. It was unicorn culture at its best. I left early and told them it was not a good fit.”

—Chris, engineer

Diagnosis: a toxic interviewer

“The woman [interviewing me] insisted I had an autoimmune disease and scratched my arm to prove it. It was pretty shocking and—now looking back—probably illegal.”

—Liz, content marketing manager and photographer

The coat that’s still in Dubai

“A startup I was interviewing with asked me to figure out how to get one of the executive’s coats back from Dubai to Seattle as a test and only gave me his name—that was it. I’m pretty sure he never got that suit coat back.”

—Executive assistant

The awkward group interview

“I was once interviewed in the company cafeteria along with about four other applicants, each one trying to land the same job, who were just a few feet away from me. We were like crabs in a bucket, vying for the same position and seated uncomfortably close to each other.”

—Christina, customer success and startup growth consultant

Be a baby, but make it work

“Interviewed with a startup a few years back, and they asked me to pretend I was five years old and tell them a story.”

—Same Christina, different cringe-worthy experience

Ghosted, but with a twist

“I [also] interviewed with another company who asked what my husband did for work, then asked me to connect them with him. [They] ghosted me afterward.”

—Christina just can’t get a break

When a company ghosts you—part II

“I did [a series of interviews with] a pretty established company in the South Bay. The ‘final review’ had the usual things: whiteboarding exercises, lunch, quick-fire interviews with multiple people. Then, I never heard back from them. Later someone in the same company reached out to me to see if I would interview for the job but never mentioned that I had been a previous candidate. So when I started going through the interviews again, they informed me that I couldn’t continue with the process—because I was already in the system. And then they ghosted me.”

—Tamra, lead designer

The helicopter recruiter

“I was working with an external recruiter who then attended my interviews with me. So I’d be meeting with CEOs with her in the room, and I went on two interviews like that. Definitely never had that happen again, and not something I’d want to do again.”

—Sharon, project manager

Sorry, I didn’t attend Stanford

“When I arrived at their office, which was still over next to Fry’s at the time, I was greeted by a super-friendly guy on a scooter who escorted me to the interview area and showed me around the open work areas, highlighting the white-noise sound design, swings, and hammocks. I went through four interviews, starting with a couple of people on the communications team who were bright and energetic and gave me the impression they were interviewing for me rather than the other way around. But once they looked over my résumé again, they noticed I hadn’t graduated from Harvard or Stanford and asked ‘Why are you even here in the first place?’ That was fun.”

—Paula, communications expert

*Because of the very tea-spilling nature of this article, the vast majority of those willing to lend their opinion wanted some (or an absolute) level of anonymity, so last names were omitted from profiles.