Recruiter reached out about ~1.5 weeks after submitting my application. Had a phone call to understand role and introduce myself. During that time, salary and job expectations were shared. Recruiter even divulged where I would likely fall on the pay-band given my extensive experience, and what that "micro range" was. I was promised extensive details ahead of each interview so I could come fully prepared. Recruiter was enthusiastic and nice, and wasn't shy about oversharing how extremely qualified I was for this role.
Next interview was with Hiring Manager only a few days later. Only the person's name was given, no other context as to what the ~1 hour interview time was going to be focused on. (This was unlike the "extensive details" I was promised.)
Hiring Manager arrived on time to our Zoom meeting. He immediately began with sharing he had read my resume and was not interested in me going through it. We instead jumped into questions I had about the role (??) which after led into a question that I didn't immediately realize was a lead-in to a case study-style interview. (I had no primer that this was coming or that I should have prepared mentally for this. Made even more confusing considering I had just been prompted to ask questions about the role without ever talking about the role or myself.)
The Hiring Manager was quite condescending during the what I realize now was the case study, and made a snide comment at one point when I guess I got an answer to his question wrong. At another point, felt it was appropriate to make fun of an outcome I had come up with. And then it was abruptly over.
There was no questions about me or even an opportunity for me to discuss my skillset, problems that I have solved at my job, how I've approached or built features in my current role, innovative solutions I've built, the impact I've made, how I like lead teams, or anything.
In hindsight, the Hiring Manager came from a long tenure in the consulting world so perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised after all that we were going to immediately jump into a case study. However, case study-style interviews disenfranchise a lot of brilliant talent like myself, so this is ultimately their loss. No good solutions are created in 10 minutes with fake data and no context, especially by thoughtful, data-first people whose brain needs time to digest. Neurodivergent people like myself mine as well throw in the towel as soon as "case study" is mentioned.
(My guess is that this type of interview process still exists at Walmart because their Recruitment teams don't analyze candidate pipelines, nor where marginalized applicants like myself consistently fall off and try to figure out why.... does no one wonder how someone who is a "no brainer" for a role according to their own Recruiter would suddenly bomb once they get to a certain step?)
After the interview - to add insult to injury considering I was made fun of by the Hiring Manager - I was ghosted. I will say, this is the second time Walmart has ghosted me within the past month, so this is clearly a cultural choice. The Walmart Product team seems very unwelcoming so may not even be worth an interview.