I got an invitation for an interview out of the blue for a specific date and time without speaking or exchanging emails with a recruiter. I think it was strange. It turned out that there were two parts to this interview - the first part was with a recruiter and the second part was with two designers and the person from engineering.
The first part went smoothly, the recruiter was friendly and welcoming. The problems started when the rest of the team joined. One person was extremely standoffish, came off quite rude, didn't even acknowledge my presence and only spoke about me once in 3rd person (!). I'm not sure why they were even invited if they didn't bring anything (positive) to the interview process?
The whole interview was uncomfortable, stanoffish and unfriendly.
I got to present one of my case studies, but they all seemed uninterested and barely spoke a word.
However, during the interview, I found out that the second stage is a design TASK, where they ask you for spec work, working for FREE and providing them with out-of-context design suggestions for their website.
When I questioned this, they got nervous and suspicious, claiming they wouldn't steal my work, which is a massive red flag, so I think I dodged a bullet.
I wish all of this was mentioned in the job description and that I'd spoken with the recruiter beforehand to avoid this massive waste of time. AVOID!!!