I applied on LinkedIn and was contacted by a recruiter. This was close to one of the most unprofessional people I’ve spoken with in any job process. She talked super negatively about candidates and when she asked me about my salary expectations, I said they were in alignment with the job listing. When she pressed and asked me for my “sweet spot” I said uh, well, I suppose I’d be at the top of the range given my considerable expertise and number of years of experience, and she BALKED and didn’t want to put me thru after she already said she was going to? She was like nonono I mean like, your SWEET spot…?? Salary ranges exist for a reason. If you’re ONLY planning to move forward with candidates at the BOTTOM of the salary range in then you’re in trouble. She went on to say that she’s always “irritated by people who try to negotiate on the back end like why are you trying to negotiate now we talked about this in the beginning.” Umm. Miss Recruiter…you’re 1. Highly unprofessional and 2. Negotiating offers is the norm. In fact everyone I know negotiates offers. Everyone.
She did in fact move me forward but I was super uncomfortable. I felt a modicum of hope when I spoke to a higher up in my next interview, as she seemed more put together and professional for such a large org, but some of her statements also made me uncomfortable. When asked about timelines for their plans for the role one of her statements was “once we are printing money” made it very clear that as usual their focus isn’t on quality of their content and engaging their clients/community, but on their bottom line, in a crass way none the less.
I did also make it past that interview and had a “final” interview that consisted of a 4 person panel that was wildly confusing and disorganized. It was crystal clear these people don’t know what the function of the role they were interviewing for does. With the exception of a single person on the panel, none of them had been with the org for longer than a month or two and were asking form questions with no follow up looked generally confused. I am a subject matter expert and have done this job for a long time, and I can tell you 3/4 of those people looked like they had 0 experience with the role much less interviewing candidates for the role.
At the end of this “final” interview I was told I’d be hearing from the original recruiter with next steps. A week went by and I heard nothing, so I followed up via email. The next day I received a form letter thanking me ”for my application.” That was it. From start to finish nothing but bad vibes and worse impressions from almost every member of their team. Avoid!