Amazon's online job exam takes control of your laptop and tracks things like mouth movement (AMZN)

December 09, 2016 at 14:44 PM EST

Amazon isn't really known for having the friendliest work culture.

And according to Shivan Kaul, a software engineer who recently interviewed for an internship position there, Amazon seems to have an equally rough online job assessment process.

Kaul, who's based in Montreal, shared his experience in a blog post this week, calling the whole procedure "surreal."

His frustration is largely aimed at Proctorio, an online proctoring company hired by Amazon, but it gives a good look into how some online job assessment tests could rub off the wrong way by trying to remotely monitor every small detail of the candidate.

"The normalization of privacy violation has never felt more real," Kaul writes.

Kaul tells his story in two separate blog posts. You should read the whole thing, but for those who don't have the time, here are some of the highlights:

Kaul is an engineering student at McGill University. He applied for an internship position at Amazon.
For the position, Kaul had to take two online assessment tests. He didn't have much issue with the first exam. But the second test, facilitated by Proctorio, was a whole different experience.
First, you're asked to download a software, which takes complete control of your computer.
Some of the things that get "collected" during the exam include: microphone, mouse, webcam, browser size, head movements, eye movements, and mouth movements, among many others.
It shuts down all running apps, too.
It blocks you from taking any screenshots.
You have to clean up your desk. If it's too messy, you can take the exam on your bed, like Kaul did.
But you have to remove bed sheets and show the proctor through the webcam that there are no cheating materials nearby.
You're given one bathroom break, for 5 minutes.
In Kaul's case, the software suddenly acted up and he had to wait nearly an hour trying to get it fixed.
Soon, he realized he couldn't take it anymore. So he quit.
"The absurdity of what I’m doing - waiting to get access to my own machine - outweighs the patience I have for someone trying to do their job," he writes.

To be fair, the controlling measures seem to be standard for most Proctorio-managed exams, so it's hard to entirely blame Amazon for it. Also, it's difficult to tell if other tech companies have a similar process.

But Kaul told us he had a completely different experience with Salesforce, where he interned this year after taking the same type of online exam for the position. Salesforce didn't have a third-party proctor, but had someone from its engineering team give the exam instead.

Kaul declined to further discuss his experience with us, but said that he's been able to get an offer from another software company based in California. He also points out in his blog post that he "respects Amazon as a company" and he's heard from current employees that the company is "overhauling" its interview process.

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