Carver PR interview questions

Appalling treatment of interview candidates during the interview process. Having spoken to many of my peers in the industry, it appears many others have endured the same treatment. The process was rigorous and quite interrogative. At the final stage candidates are often led to believe they are getting the role but then subject to meeting the entire team which felt like a setup. The team and MD threw a number of personal questions unrelated to the role and then grilled you on personal opinions which almost felt like character assassination. The MD then proceeded to smoke out of the window of the office whilst the team continued to ask these questions.

I had a really lovely initial chat with a couple people that I thought went really well. High salary, very transparent with it from the get go, seemed really positive. I then got told I had got through to the second stage of the process, in which I got given a task that would have taken me more than one full working day to complete to a high standard. I questioned this in which the recruiter clearly got flustered and gave me a bunch of non-answers to the questions I asked. I withdrew myself from the process because I fundamentally disagree with working that much for free when I was interviewing for a mid-level position in which I shouldn’t have to prove myself that much that I’m capable. Turns out a few weeks later the ‘scenario’ I was given was for a client they had just won, and they very likely would have taken my *full* press plan (including press release, targets, written pitches) and used it as their own had I not got the job. Disgraceful. I’m not against completing a small task (a couple hours, give or take) but not when it’s obvious the work is going to be used. Glad I trusted my gut on this one.