I applied online & was contacted by a recruiter quickly. We had a phone interview & then multiple phone interviews. It was stressed repeatedly that it was very important that there be a harmonious fit between the proposal writer and the sales and tech team(s) so the interviews were with several groups.
The job sounded fun despite a substantial drop in salary.
I was flown to SC and my individual interviews continued to rock. I thought it was going to be a great fit. Then the group interview began and it was a nightmare. Some general questions were asked that were perfectly normal, though I felt as though many were posed in a way that felt like set up to sound negative. For example, I was asked about the worst things about my previous corporate experiences and what I would do if I found myself in the situation again (I'd quit).
Then in the "let's get to know you with some harmless chitchat" questions came the worst ones of all. See the Interview Questions for examples. But I knew it was the end when I was asked "CNN or Fox News." Wow. I don't think it gets more illegally painful than that. Nice situation for me - answer and alienate a bunch of people or don't answer and alienate them all.
I replied that I didn't think it would be wise for me to answer that and she REPEATED the question. I turned 10 shades of red and said again, while squirming that I wasn't sure we should go there. Finally the manager said "maybe that's too political" after I was obviously not going to play their game. But let's face it, damage was done. Not only were wholly irrelevant questions asked but I looked terrible for not answering them. We sure covered lots of things that had absolutely nothing to do with my abilities but gave a great picture of my personal life, habits, interests, affiliations, etc. Lots of ways to judge me.
What a surprise that after a notice came of a delay in one of my flights back that the recruiter came down and told me they rebooked me on a flight that was 4 hours earlier. Huh. My tour of the campus strangely canceled. I was then quickly taken to the hotel where I was given 4 minutes to get my suitcase and throw it into the car, no time to change.
On the way to the airport, the hiring manager was very sweet and continued to tell me about the job as if I still had a chance. I relaxed and we chatted. At the airport, her parting words were to tell me again how important cultural fit was and that it had to be a unanimous Yes vote to get a job offer. And that was that.
The trip home was awful. I was booked into a middle seat in the discounted rows in the back of the plane (which had not been done to me on the way in) which caused my leg to swell so badly that I had to take a later connecting flight to wait for the swelling to go down and pay out of pocket for a seat I could fit my limbs into.
But the final insult was that after arriving home at nearly 2 am on Tuesday, I did not receive a single communication from the company for 9 days...despite 2 follow up phone calls. Apparently the recruiter went on vacation the day after my interview and not only did not bother to have a colleague follow up, but felt this was not information worth giving me. So after spending over 30 hours of my time on this company, I could not even get the courtesy of a "no thank you" for over a week.
It was beyond unprofessional. I already had significant hesitations about wanting to work there after the group interview (even before that given the terrible salary) but by Day Four of radio silence, my feeling was that if this company was so insensitive to people, then their demand for a culture fit made me wonder what the real culture was. I've been encouraged to pursue all of these horribly offensive and questionable interview questions.
If you read this, BenefitFocus, you owe me an apology if not reimbursement.