I applied online for a recruiter position, and received a phone call requesting to schedule a phone interview. It was quick, about 15 minutes, just detailing the job responsibilities and going over my resume. Went on to schedule yet another phone interview with the same HR rep, which had pretty much the same questions but a little more in depth.
I then was offered an in-person interview with the director of the branch I applied to. This is where it got messy - I told them I could work around a time slot they had for me, and we set up an interview time. I then got about 3-4 phone calls every day (anywhere from 8am to 7pm) for about the next 3 days (right up until the evening before the interview) asking me to reschedule over and over again because of personal reasons on their end. I was able to reschedule, but after so many phone calls wanting to change things around I started questioning how much I even wanted to work for the company - if it's this difficult to schedule an interview, how is it actually working there? Better yet, after all of those phone calls they finally settled on keeping the originally scheduled interview.
The first interview lasted about an hour. It was a little awkward, I felt like they were trying to get more of a feel for my personal interests/personality than actually asking questions related to my experience and the job duties. The first 10-15 minutes didn't even feel like an interview, more like them trying to find out my hobbies, and I kept wondering if I needed to steer it back to the job at hand.
I got a call from the HR rep again the next day and I passed the in-person interview, and scheduled a job shadow for later in the week. I was told it would take about 1-2 hours. Again I met with a senior recruiter, and felt like instead of a typical interview, we spent about 30 minutes just talking about completely random, not-at-all related to the job small talk. I met with a few account managers, and about 3 hours later was on my way.
From there, I expected to get a call back from the HR rep (she had been pretty good about following up later in the day or the next day from any interview) but didn't hear back. A few days passed, and still nothing, so I called and left her a message asking if they had made any decisions back. A couple days later, she finally calls and leaves a message saying she sent me an e-mail earlier in the week (I never received it) but they chose to go with other applicants.
Very frustrating, long process. I would think if they knew they didn't want me, they wouldn't have had me come to the job shadow, and/or wouldn't have kept me there so long.
