This was a long and pointless process, I'm extremely disappointed. I first had a call with the recruiter, who then sent me a take-home assignment. This was a 5-exercise document, from which I had to pick 3 to explain my work process in detail and provide the writing pieces/wireframes as well. I had a week to do this, and it was a lot of work, to be honest.
I then waited for over a week and the recruiter finally told me I passed, and that I would have 2 final back to back 1.5 hour long interviews, one to explain my assignment work and another one to show them and describe two projects from my portfolio. I had these interviews and they both went great, but after that, radio silence.
I waited and sent an email to the recruiter, who only then told me that the hiring manager was out of office and I had to wait for like 15 days, and asked me if I had any timelines to be mindful of. I waited, the recruiter didn't write back. I sent her an email and she told me the role was on hold, and that she would contact me within a week or two. Needless to say, she didn't. I waited for another 15 days and sent her an email to ask for an update and she finally told me that I was one of the strongest candidates but that they went for someone else.
This whole thing lasted for 2 months from the first interview until I got an answer, and just because I kept sending messages. 1 month passed between the final interviews and this final message. I'm sure I wouldn't have known where I stood if I didn't insist, which is infuriating given that I passed to the final stages and I knew I had done well. Not even a final yes or no.
The team was super nice during my interviews, and they seemed to be happy with me as well. It's a shame that the communication from the recruiters is so bad, I can understand being ghosted at the earlier stages (which is wrong as well) but certainly not if I was one of the strongest candidates and made it to the end. Red flags everywhere. It's a shame, because the interviews were actually interesting and the questions were thought-provoking.