What to expect (written from the perspective of a 5-year Yelp technical recruiter, and may be applicable to other interviews of similar-sized companies):

General:

Phone call is scheduled in advance via email.
- At Yelp, this call with a recruiter follows successful completion of a 15-minute timed coding challenge issued via HackerRank (highly encourage taking practice problems first). The call has no bearing on the next step of the interview process, unless you’re a jerk :).
To get a coding challenge, you should attend a meetup or directly contact someone at the company. This sounds backwards (and it probably is), but Yelp doesn’t have the recruiting resources to evaluate all the incoming online applications, so they rarely look for candidates there. The recruiter has likely scheduled only 15-20 minutes for this call (I used to schedule 30 mins so that I had time to visit the bathroom or for calls to run over, but some don’t have the luxury in their day. If they cut you off, don’t worry you’re doing badly– they’re probably just busy!. This is probably the longest amount of time you’ll talk to that recruiter before the offer stage, so it’ll be good to ask as many questions as you need without monopolizing their time.
When you’re contacted to schedule a call or interview, always give at least 3 clear, specific and ranges of availability, such as “every Wednesday from 3-5pm; Thursday, 4/26 from 12-5pm, or Monday, 4/30 from 11am-2pm.” The recruiter or coordinator scheduling you has to contend with you and your interviewer’s schedules, so the more you can minimize back-and-forth, the better. That said, try to keep the times you offered free until confirmed, if you can, or communicate as things change – everybody hates reschedules, unless there’s a real emergency or a misunderstanding.

What to prepare:

Know why (or at least come up with a few reasons) you want to work at that company.
For a consumer product, play around with it (if you’re not already a user) and note some features you find interesting.
For an enterprise product, at least watch a demo (usually on their site) and learn what that company is doing (if you have time, also how their product compares to a competitor’s– if not, this can be a good question to ask the recruiter!).
At least at Yelp, you will likely be asked why you want to work at the company in EVERY interview.
Ideally your answer isn’t verbatim the same each time, but paraphrasing or sharing the same story is fine.
Common answers are “I love the product”/ “I use it for restaurants all the time,” but better answers identify a cool feature, non-restaurant category of business, or a personal connection to it, i.e. “I have a family member/friend who owns a moving business and Yelp has really made a difference in their success,” or “Yelp has always helped me find great local businesses [this also shows you’ve done research/learned Yelp’s motto], like when I was traveling recently– I knew there had to be a more unique place than Starbucks and I was really happy with the cafe I found.”
Think about your timeline– this can be as simple as “I’d like to make a decision by X month or date” or as complicated as “I have phone interviews with the following companies, onsites scheduled with these companies, and offers from these companies.”
Recruiters use this information differently at every company, but at Yelp this is so they can gauge how quickly they have to move you through the process. Yelp’s average processing time for entry-level software roles is 1 month from initial coding challenge to offer, but this varies depending on the time of year (fall is busiest) and the candidates’ schedule.
A recruiter at Yelp will also use the data about other companies to gauge your timeline based on what they’ve experienced about those companies’ processes (for example, Google’s is notoriously long and Yelp won’t wait for them, but a startup’s main competitive advantage is interviewing more quickly than Yelp can usually accommodate, so they’ll try to speed things up if possible).
Consider what’s important to you in your next role / company. Or put differently, if you’re comparing multiple offers, how will you decide which is the best for you? At Yelp, recruiters use this information as an opportunity to sell you on what’s great about Yelp within the scope of things you care about, including later in the process to share with hiring managers who may focus on that in a closing call (a call to “close” a candidate who has an offer).
There’s no wrong answer here, it just helps the recruiter figure out what information about the company is most relevant or exciting to you. Common examples include but are certainly not limited to: mentorship/growth opportunities, work-life balance, office location, impact, team/projects… again, no wrong answer, just what you care about!
Questions for each company representative you might encounter.
Even a recruiter can offer great data points!
For jobs in San Francisco, you should ask the recruiter about salary! As of January 2018, they have to tell you the salary range for that opportunity if asked, and this is a great way to learn: whether the offer you receive has room to negotiate (i.e. if they offer less than the top end of the range), if you’re being undervalued, potentially by mistake (if the offer is less than the bottom end of the range), or whether the entire range is unacceptable to you and not worth your time continuing (the recruiter will also appreciate not wasting their time if you know you won’t accept something in that range).
Other good fallback questions if you don’t have anything else you want to ask:
what do you like most/least about working at X company?
What team are you on (if you don’t know already)?
How long have you been at the company and (if >6 months) how have things changed since you started?
Can you tell me more about how teams operate (you can leave this open-ended and see how they reply, or specify details like how teams work together, whether they use agile, if team members eat lunch together or go off on their own, etc)?
What does onboarding look like for a new hire on an engineering team?
How does the team I might join handle failure?
My old script of questions (still used by some Yelp recruiters), order might vary depending on the candidate:
Hey [Name], is now still a good time a chat? How’s your day going?
Today, I’ll be asking you about your background, what you’re interested in working on, why you’d like to join Yelp, your timeline, and the rest of the interview process. We’ll also have time to discuss any questions you have for me. Any initial questions before we get started?
Tell me a little more about how you came to be interested in [role].
What interests you about joining Yelp? [if recruiter reached out instead of candidate applying, ask “Have you thought about working at Yelp? Any initial impressions or worries I can confirm or deny?”]
Let’s talk a little about your timeline. Are you interviewing with other companies? If so, with whom and how far along are you?
Confirm if we can meet the timeline or if the candidate’s timeline is unrealistic.
Great to hear you’re active in the job search! Let’s say you were considering offers from all these companies– great problem to have!– how will you narrow down your decision? In other words, what are the important factors in deciding your next role? Explain how Yelp fits the things they’re looking for, or be honest about what is unlikely to be a match.
Now I’d like to share what happens next in the interview process: a recruiting coordinator will be in touch soon to schedule a 45-minute skype interview with an engineer. I’d love to get your availability of convenient times that will be open for the next 2-3 weeks. If that skype interview goes well, you’ll hear from me in about a week to ask how it went and schedule you for a half-day onsite interview. You’d meet 3-4 Yelpers with technical backgrounds, and at least one is likely to be a manager.
My last question is one our legal team requires me to ask: Do you have the legal right to work in the US? [this question is asking whether you need a visa, but lawyers say recruiters can’t ask that directly. It has no bearing on your qualifications for the job, and recruiters are not allowed to share the answer with hiring managers, but they will need the info to potentially sponsor a visa or know whether or not they are able to apply for what you need]
Any questions for me, either things I didn’t cover or that came up during this call you’d like to hear more about? Feel free to email anything you think of later, too.