I was contacted by a recruiter for a design position. I have a good 10+ years in this industry and in the specific field they were recruiting for. I saw a few red flags and in all honesty I should have halted the process when they asked for a test project. Giving that my experience is 1:1 what they were seeking, I should have refused the test project, but of course this would have ended the interview process. I had a series of interviews over the next couple of weeks which went ok. In the end the reason I was giving to not receiving an offer was "we decided to go in another direction". This is the most generic response you can give, and I expected more. I asked for more feedback but was given "sorry we legally are not allowed to do so". So now I will never know if they did not like my test project, or if my personality didn't jive with their team, or if i was too opinionated for them because they refused to give any sort of feedback which is a major cop out. I wasted over 30 hours on the test project and interviews. It's my fault for not seeing the red flags right away, but hey you live and learn.

I interviewed for 2 designer roles. The first round included 2 phone interviews, a test project, and a final round of 4- 45 min zoom interviews with different team members. This was a lengthy and time consuming process, but everything seemed to be going well. I was eventually informed that they went with another candidate and was basically told I was over qualified for an associate role (they knew my experience from the beginning), and although, they’d be “honored to welcome me to Target”, they thought a mid level design role would be better suited for me and would love to “socialize my information” to other departments. A couple months later I was asked to interview again for a mid level design role. This again involved 2 phone interviews, a new test project, and 4-45 min final round zoom interviews. (I will add I had to wait 1 month between each interview round and the total process took 3 months). Although, I was hesitant from the last interview process, I was told “we want you at Target” so I decided to continue with the final round project and zoom interviews. I even had to interview again with one of the same people I had for the previous role. After the final round, I was told I’d hear back in 2 weeks because someone was out of town. I didn’t hear anything. After 3 weeks I reached out for an update and didn’t hear anything. I reached out 1 more time after 4 weeks and finally heard back that they went with another candidate (no explanation or feedback). Although the recruiter and everyone I met with were very kind, the whole process felt unnecessarily grueling and duplicitous with little respect for my time and effort.