The entire interview process felt chaotic and was one of the most unprofessional in my career.
When they initially reached out to me to schedule a screening call, they awkwardly left in sections of the generic email template, such as "Hi [Candidate's Name]...Thank you for your interest in the [Position Name] role at [Company Name].” After the screening call, I was invited for a formal interview. However, the scheduling process was awkward again due to mistakes they made in the date and time shown in the invite. With each attempt to correct the issue, multiple incorrect invites were sent before it was finally addressed.
However, the scheduling issues were not over. Halfway through the virtual interview, I realized that they expected me to stay for a full hour instead of the 30 minutes shown in the calendar invite. I was surprised when the interviewer didn’t seem concerned or apologetic about the scheduling problems and acted as if this was normal. Overall, the interview felt very unorganized as she monologued for most of the time and didn’t seem to have prepared many questions in advance. I was also disappointed by her inability to answer most of my technical questions related to the requirements of the position. I was then told I would be getting an update the next day as she was looking to move quickly.
After not getting an update by the promised date, I followed up a couple of days later. However, when they replied, I was stunned when they asked me to be available for a second interview within two hours! This last minute request was very frustrating as I had to shuffle a lot of things around in my schedule with very little notice. In fact, the same person who had scheduled the first interview made errors again in the calendar invites and essentially ignored the times I told her I would be available that afternoon.
Similar to the last interview, this one was also very unstructured as the interviewer seemed to be winging it with an odd series of disjointed questions. He also didn’t seem concerned that this was scheduled for 30 minutes even though it would require a full hour. Because of this, I was forced to be late to my next appointment. What was also bewildering was that the interviewer failed to properly introduce himself at the very start of the meeting. After sensing something was off based on his lack of intimate knowledge about the company and the role, I asked him to tell me more about his position. I was shocked when he told me he was not an actual employee of the company but rather a former colleague of the previous interviewer, who was new to this company. He then went on to say that he was simply assisting her in this process as a favor. This meant that he was unable to answer many of my specific questions about the organization since he only had a small amount of experience supporting them. This made me wonder why they did not involve an actual employee from the company in this important interview stage as this was a critical role. Later on, when I answered his question about my salary expectations, he reacted as if the number I shared was too high, even though this matched what was listed in the job description and I verified this during the previous interview. He later admitted to not knowing the details of the job description and not coordinating with the previous team members on what I had already shared with them. At the end of the interview, he indicated I should expect an update within a week. However, after not getting an update by that time frame, I followed up and was told by the other team members that they planned to get back to me at a different time, which again indicated they were not coordinating with each other.
By this point, I had lost a significant amount of interest in the role. Their poor communication, lack of coordination, and unprofessionalism throughout my experience were major red flags and ultimately led me to accept an offer for another opportunity shortly after. This poor interview experience indicates serious dysfunction within their organization and explains the extremely negative reviews posted online by other employees.
