I applied online. I interviewed at Penguin Random House in Apr 2024
Interview
Over zoom and was no longer than 15 minutes, nice interviewers and not too tense of an environment. Two people were on the meeting interviewing me. Make sure you are prepared and can tell personal stories.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
They asked me why I wanted to work for their company, my strengths and weaknesses, a time where I showed resilience, and something important I learned or did in marketing. Make sure you have an extensive answer for the last one because I didn't and talked about a class project that was not completed yet.
Had a lovely time speaking with the team and learning about the company. Overall, the interview is not hard and the team make you feel comfortable. The questions are quite common (about what you do and to provide examples of certain situations).
The downside is that there is a task involved which is always risky as you're providing work for free.
But what made me give this interview a bad review is that, after I presented a task that took hours of my time to work on, the company decided to change the role and the required skillset and wouldn't proceed with my application. Incredibly unprofessional on their end, you should not ask applicants for unpaid work and then decide to restructure the role. The company wasted people's time instead of being organised and restructuring the role beforehand.
Very disappointing.
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Penguin Random House (Londen, Engeland) in May 2023
Interview
You have to go through several processes, the first with questions on a form that from there they select you or not, then do a series of spelling and reading comprehension exercises, do a virtual assessment recording yourself on video and then do a series of online group exercises with other candidates with prior material, which you have to analyse and study in order to be able to do the group exercise.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What would be the way to improve marketing in one of your brands?