I was first contacted by a recruitment firm to assess my suitability for the application process at Darktrace. After two rounds with the recruiters, I had my first round with a Darktrace talent acquisition employee, which went well. A few days later, I had my second round with a business development executive. She was very polite but not natural, and I sensed from the beginning that she had no sympathy for me. I could feel her forced politeness and rejection. At the end of the conversation, I asked what the next steps were, and she said she would like to invite me for a third and final round the following day, where I would have to do a roleplay, and then they would make a decision. I prepared for the roleplay and was ready the next morning. However, then came the message that the interview could not take place because a "private emergency" had occurred with the lady, and therefore, the interview had to be postponed. Then Darktrace did not send any further messages for the entire week, and when I asked, they said they could not give me a new appointment yet, but they definitely wanted to continue with my application process in the following week, and they hoped I would not already have signed somewhere else by then. Okay, that sounded promising. Then, the following week, a time slot was arranged for Tuesday morning, 7 days after the original appointment. Tuesday morning, 2 hours before the appointment, I received a message that the appointment had to be cancelled because they had decided not to continue with me. All in all, a really bad situation and absolutely disrespectful. I would have expected a more professional behavior from a company of this size, which is also one of the market leaders in their segment, and not what was pulled off here, as this was really beneath contempt. As I was highly qualified for the position, I must conclude that the decision in this case was not made based on qualifications but rather due to personal feelings of a woman whose place in a modern professional environment should be reconsidered. Beware, overall a very bad, dishonest and disrespectful way of treating people.
