I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Salesforce (San Francisco, CA) in Jan 2010
Interview
After I applied online, a recruiter sent me a questionnaire to fill out. The questions were broad, so I included a fair amount of detail about my work philosophy and included links to work samples.
A few days later, the recruiter set up an appointment for a phone interview, but the caller was a no-show. I set up another appointment and had a 30-minute phone interview with the hiring manager. She said she hadn't read my questionnaire, so the conversation was at a shallow level. At the end of the call, she told that there wasn't actually an opening; that it's their practice to interview people in advance of an opening actually becoming available. I was warned that there might not be any actual openings for several months.
But about two weeks later, the recruiter contacted me again to set up an in-person interview. I came into the office, but was told that there still wasn't an actual opening. I was given a one-page copy-editing test, which included a simple HTML code review. Then I spoke with about six people who would be peers and superiors. No actual job, but good interviewing practice, I guess.
A few days later, I was offered a 3-month contract, but turned it down.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Pretend that I'm a product manager and interview me about a new product to figure out how to structure the help content for the product.