I applied online and was contacted within the next business day. The phone interview and initial conversation with the recruiter were very positive. I thought she was really professional, prompt, and considerate of my time. I was given a pre-interview data management assignment to complete before scheduling an in-person interview. After this, she confirmed an in-person interview time within the following week.
The in-person interview was a very different story, and I was truly shocked, as I was really excited about the school. It was one of the first schools I considered since transitioning into nonprofit education. I arrived a few minutes early and after making my way upstairs, I was abruptly greeted and left in the front office unattended long past our scheduled start time. From there I was brought into another room and was prompted to complete a 5 minute written organizational task. I admired there being a skills-based project, but one thing I noticed was that the sample project was poorly thought out, as it did not fit the objective. In this case, the project listed off a number of deliverables for the role on what turned out to be a calendar for the school year, and yet what I was really being asked was how I would organize these tasks throughout the day, which doesn't make much sense.
What came next was worse. I was led to another room to talk with the team and share my experience. Some of this included "how would you handle this...etc" and role-playing scenarios. In the middle of this, another manager came in and introduced herself, and then left, and came back (WHILE WE WERE SPEAKING) because "something came up." No one seemed present or focused and after somewhat wrapping up, I was told my interview would be cut short (30 MINUTES SHORT) because something else was scheduled that day. I was told I would not be given a full tour of the school, but that I would quickly be given a tour, (not even going inside the classrooms!) of two of the floors. I was told at the end that they would get back to me the following week. The following week I received an automated email saying I was not selected.
I think this experience was a really poor reflection of the school, as I had much higher expectations. It felt like a complete waste of my time, my time and effort were disregarded, and the school was not prepared for the interview at all. It's unethical and unprofessional to put a candidate through such a lengthy stressful process and be a complete mess of an organization yourself. Candidates deserve a much better interview experience than this.
