You'll have to pass all these tests to land a job working on Uber's food delivery service

REUTERS/Mike Blake

Travis Kalanick, cofounder and CEO of Uber Technologies Inc.

After Uber launched its food delivery app - UberEats - in London this summer, I applied to join its launch team in the role of "Restaurant Operations Manager."

It was the most intense job application process I have ever been through - including Google and Goldman Sachs.

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Uber went with a different candidate in the end, but I got through most of the hurdles.

Here's what it takes to land a job at the world's most valuable startup:

The first hurdle was passing a 2-hour analytics test

After submitting my CV, I received an email inviting me to complete a two hour analytics test. The test was all about Uber's "supply" - drivers and restaurants - for both its car-hailing (Uber) and food-delivery (UberEats) businesses.

I had to calculate which drivers and restaurants were the most valuable to Uber, using a bunch of data in a spreadsheet.

Drivers were measured by things such as how many ride requests they accepted, how often they cancelled a trip after accepting it, and how much they time spent "online" ready to accept requests for trips.

Uber

Some of the data Uber provided on its drivers as part of the analytics test.

Restaurants were measured by the hour on things such as how many orders they completed and the difference between the estimated and actual time it took to prepare food.

After passing (the pass mark was 70%), the next step was a 30 minute phone interview with a HR representative - then I was sent two case studies.

I had to complete 2 case studies in presentation format

The first case study tested my creativity on how I would improve "restaurant efficiency" - how much money Uber makes from a restaurant it delivers food for.

To enhance a restaurant's "metrics" - the way Uber defined them for its food-delivery business, as below - I had to design a strategy with a focus on peak hours.

Uber

I had to design a strategy to improve these restaurant metrics.

The second exercise - "marketplace analytics" - tested my skills with numbers.

I was given three different restaurants' metrics and had to calculate which one was the most valuable to Uber. It defined its customers as "Eaters" if they completed at least one order in that week.

It included metrics like how much customers spend on average at each restaurant, as well as the restaurant's social media following.

Uber

I had to calculate which one of these restaurants was most valuable to Uber.

Another question I had to answer was if I would change Uber's service fee - which it said could be anything from 20%-30% - to take more or less revenue from each order.

The HR team gave me three days to complete both exercises, and I had to deliver my answers in presentation format, attaching my analysis. I passed - the next step was to meet the team in the office. This seemed like the final hurdle. Instead, I had a video interview with the general manager. It was a relatively standard interview format.

One of the questions was: "How would you incentivise chefs to meet estimated food prep times?" I didn't come up with a creative idea for this as my response was based on financial incentives. I was told chefs prefer social incentives such as drink events, over monetary ones.

Business Insider reached out to Uber for a comment and a spokesperson confirmed the numbers used in the exercises "are not figures from a real restaurant - we make them up for the exercise."