Optima Dermatology interview questions

My experience ultimately left a very poor taste in my mouth. Something the recruiting team needs to remember is that this is a consumer healthcare brand and every single candidate they interact with is a potential patient, particularly given the medical aesthetics side of the business and rapid expansion plans. As a consumer of these services, based on my candidate experience, I will now never be a patient at Optima and will actively share this experience with others. I have spent my entire career in talent and HR, so I uniquely understand the nuances of hiring and that not every person is a fit for every role or company. However, poorly managing expectations and the candidate experience is unacceptable in general, but particularly for consumer brands. I applied via LinkedIn and received a video interview request from the recruiter a few days later. When we spoke the following week, I felt like the interview went very well and the recruiter agreed. The recruiter explained that the first interview was mostly an informational call and proceeded to speak about the company for the majority of the interview. She then asked me a couple of very basic questions before asking me if I had questions. When we wrapped the call, she said she would be recommending to the CFO that I move forward in the process and I should hear from them about next steps either that week or the following week. I sent a thank you note re-confirming my interest in the role and received a reply that was positive and in no way indicated I was out of the running for the role. That week closed out with no further contact from Optima. Then no contact the next week either. So I sent a followup early the following week checking on where things stood with the role. Shortly after that I received a generic auto-rejection message from their ATS that was written as if I had just submitted an application, not interviewed for the role and effectively been told I was moving to the next round. Particularly with high level roles like this, candidates spend a significant amount of time preparing for interviews. To spend that time preparing, get on a video interview where the recruiter spends more than half the time speaking (not asking questions), be told you’re being recommended to move forward, then have no contact for 2 weeks, reach out and get a generic auto-reject message that’s not even tailored to the stage of the process you reached is unacceptable in a day and age where these systems can be highly customized. However, it would have been highly preferable for them to: 1) actually follow the timeline they communicated for follow-up 2) for the recruiter to better set expectations about the next round as she positioned and conducted the initial video interview as “checking a box” and that I would be moving forward 3) to receive a direct reply to my email, which could have been done with 2-3 sentences, and is not a significant ask given the amount of time senior-level candidates have invested at this point in the process Ultimately the recruiter got almost no additional information from me that wasn’t on my resume in that video interview, so the entire thing was a complete waste of time on both sides.

The first interview with the recruiter went well and had a second interview with the COO. The COO asked personal questions related to marital status and parental status. I did not want to be impolite and decline his answering his questions even though it is illegal to ask such questions, so I answered them honestly. After a few basic interview questions, began speaking to me about the role. He said numerous times this information is "meant to scare me" to see if I really wanted the role. I don't back down from a challenge and I was extremely interested int he role, that's why I applied and accepted the second interview. If the COO was meant to scare me, does he really want the role filled? I received a generic email stating I would not be moving on because "a better fit" has accepted the role. I reached out the first recruiter stating I was uncomfortable with the personal questions. She returned my email and apologized for my negative experience and then gave the same generic response that a better qualified candidate was selected.