I applied online and received an email to schedule the first interview. The initial emails were highly unorganized for a recruiter recruiting another recruiter... The gentleman went back and forth asking for additional times I would be available rather than providing a few days and times that he was available. This continued over the weekend as every possible date and time I provided did not work for him.
We finally got on the phone Monday morning. The actual interview was awkward and unorganized. Towards the end, the position sounded interesting and my qualifications fit well so he pushed me to the next phase. I figured I'd try one more interview and see if I liked the position after speaking with the direct manager.
I was highly unimpressed on the second phone interview with the direct manager. First of all, she was on her cell phone using speakerphone so I could barely hear her. Her voice and questions were extremely lackluster. When I asked about the culture of her team, she spoke on Tesla's culture, not her team's. Even so, she sounded very unamused with her job with each word she spoke. The lack of passion in her voice made me lose interest almost immediately.
I was really surprised how average, or frankly below average, their recruiters were in their email and verbal communication. They referred to themselves as a start-up company which baffles me as they have over 40,000 employees worldwide and have been working in the US for almost a decade. I definitely expected a company such as Tesla to have all star recruiters and a more organized screening process.