I can easily say in my 10 years of being an IT professional, this is one of the most unprofessional and terrible interview processes I have ever engaged in. The reason the process was so awful was because of the frequent lies and poor communication. I went through a recruiter who explained the whole process to me. I was initially excited because I was told it was a laid-back process, which in my mind meant the interview was going to be very direct and focused on my mindset, knowledge, and capabilities without arbitrary filters.
The first interview was very laid-back and did not have many technical questions, and little to no culture questions. My main gripe with the process is that it was essentially a vibe check. Now you might ask what constitutes a "vibe check," well that includes very thoughtful questions like, "How do you handle borderline conversations?" After the first interview, I had a good feeling, and I was even told by the recruiter that the feedback was positive. In fact, at the end of the interview, I shook the manager’s hand and he asked me if I could start next week.
Why would you shake someone’s hand and ask them if they can start next week then hire another person? Keep in mind, this is after several delays where the recruiter was told they were sick or had a family emergency, which is not even possible if you’re hiring other people and making decisions on those same days.
However, this is not where the fun ends. Two months later, they reached out to me again and said that they were definitely interested in hiring me directly. They just needed a quick interview with the boss. I unfortunately agreed to this and I ended up driving 45 minutes, moving my schedule, and preparing to interview for the second time. While this interview was not as unprofessional as the first one, it lacked a lot of focus in that many of the questions were not relevant to the position. For almost the entirety of the interview, the person just vented about the issues they encountered with other employees. To be fair, I asked what the common pitfalls might be with people who struggled to adapt, but it still did not warrant a 20 minute dissertation.
Feedback from this interview from the recruiter was also positive, however, the exact same thing happened again. The recruiter was told that there was an emergency and there was a new excuse almost every single day, only for them to hire someone else.
If this was a highly technical interview or there were a lot of culture questions to see if I was a good fit, and there was honesty, I would not be upset at all. I would just realize that I didn’t nail the interview or that I wasn’t a good fit. Since there were hardly any tactical questions and very little in the way of culture questions, I found myself incredibly confused, especially since feedback was good.
Now ask yourself, if they are deceptive and lie to your face so many times during the hiring process, what does it actually look like working here? I’m assuming there are standards and bars that get moved constantly and lots of deceptive language.
If I have any advice to management, I would like to remind them that real human beings are at the end of these processes. While I will avoid divulging too many personal details, I am down on my luck and really looking for well-paying full-time employment. This whole process was demeaning, disrespectful, and lacked empathy. You don’t shake a man’s hand and tell him that he is going to start next week and then hire another person, then do the exact same thing two months later.
I hope that you never have to face the same situation yourself.