HR screening, Exploratory round with CS director, Round 1 with Senior TPM, Round 2 is a case study round with one senior TPM and a QA lead, Followed by 2 more rounds which I did not attend.
First of all, after hearing a lot of feedback on toxic environment, I was hesitant in attending the rounds. The exploratory call happened where the person joined 15 mins late and a quick screening questions were asked. The round 1 was okay, I explained as many of my tech architecture decisions as possible - the TPM who interviewed me seemed burnt out and rushed too. Then came the case study round where I didn't get through. I was given a study , where I prepped a PPT with my plan. When I went to the call, only the QA lead was present, the other panel member was missing. The QA lead was simply stalling and wasted 20 mins in just asking me random questions and interrupting me a lot. The other member (a TPM) joined and I started my case study PPT as per my prep. In the initial slides I was interrupted and asked a couple of questions, for which I gave my perspective. The TPM was super rude, and curt which was off-putting for me , yet I continued. He even left the conversation again in the middle.
When I was just starting to explain my phase 1 plan, they said time is running out and asked me to rush. I had a lot of well thought out structures in my head - I never got the opportunity to express. They just asked me to finish abruptly and waited for questions.
I asked them a KPI related question of their product, which the QA lead didn't even know how to answer. And the TPM again was extremely rude, indicating in an inuendo that it should be obvious.
I was anyway not the least bit interested to proceed after this conversation, and I received a rejection mail.
I still asked the HR to give me a specific feedback to improve on. The answer they gave ? - can improve in project management and tech aspect. What in the world is this?
I get it that interviewers have their own work , but it's the company's responsibility to streamline the processes and always , I mean always keep the candidate in a comfortable position in the interview. It's basic rule 1 - because you can only see the best in some one when they are set in an environment where they can express freely. Please change your approach to interviews and foster safe, comfortable and co-creating environment in interviews.
Though the HR was prompt in communication, the case study interviewers definitely, most definitely, need upskilling wrt people management.