Uber General Manager interview questions

5) Interview with a peer GM from the region My final interview was strange. The interviewer asked me very UBER specific questions, but to come up with some of the solutions he wanted to hear one probably already needed to spend some time working for the company. But as it turned out his eventual solutions wouldn't have worked in the country the position was posted. For instance I was asked “How would you recruit 1,000 drivers in four weeks?” After telling him my prepared answers (post an ad on job sites, diverse local media outlets, etc.) he wanted to hear some more solutions. Eventually he told me that I could utilize a public database containing the personal contacts of all the current taxi drivers in town and send an e-mail or call them. In theory this sounds like a perfectly logical step to take. In practice, however, such a public database doesn't even exist in the country the position was in and the interviewer didn’t know it. The other solution he wanted to hear was to cooperate with existing small taxi companies to let their drivers drive for Uber too. These small taxi companies supposedly have the problem that they can’t get enough rides for their drivers, so these are idling around without any income. Even though this kind of cooperation might have happened somewhere, I think it is rather the exception than the rule for several reasons. One being that why would a small taxi company let Uber, its despised competitor, get to its drivers, rather than solve the real problem which is to get more rides. Another concern would be that hiring existing taxi drivers would go against one of Uber’s major selling proposition which is quality. On one hand Uber states that existing taxi companies and their drivers provide bad quality service, but on the other hand it expects the same employees to suddenly provide an exceptional service just by switching seats. A couple of days later when I mentioned my interview experience and the answers I was expected to come up with to a friend of mine who works for Uber in another country he just frowned upon them and shook his head. These solutions wouldn't work in any country other than Russia, where my interviewer was from, he added. Thus, one of the solutions the interviewer wanted to hear was undoubtedly false, while the other one was the utmost resort at best. Overall the interview process was demanding, and I’ve learned from it. Nevertheless the picture I got from Uber is not too flattering. You never know where you stand in the process and there are too many rounds and different people involved who don’t seem to be on the same page in fundamental issues. Additionally, the process is poorly managed. For example after doing the analytical test I was interviewed by the HR person, who at the end told me that next I would have to do an analytical test. So I reminded him that I had already completed the test, the link to which I had received from him in an e-mail, telling me to ask for the interview with him after I’m finished with the test. So we couldn’t even have had the interview without me completing the test first. The interview process at Uber is presented as vary sophisticated and professional, but I would rather characterize it as chaotic.