Having applied for an international BDM role with Diageo they first called me spontaneously during working hours and for obvious reasons I couldn’t discuss with them on the phone this opportunity in the presence of my boss who was sitting next to me. Thus they promised to call me back the following Monday at 12:00, which they missed to do. Instead someone else from HR called me a few days later again during working hours, even though I specifically asked them not to call me spontaneously at the workplace. As my boss was sitting next to me, I couldn’t attend this call either and we agreed that they’d call me back during my lunch break the same day, which again just didn’t happen. I then mailed them and proposed a call the following day at 3:00pm, which the HR person agreed to. Having learnt from my previous experiences I was somewhat worried that they’ll miss to call me again in the agreed time and I briefly enquired two hours before the call, whether they’ll indeed call me. They confirmed that our call will take place as planned, but they missed to call me again. After some investigation I managed to find out about the phone number of the HR person. I called her that same afternoon and we’ve finally managed to have a proper conversation. She briefly explained me about the role without going into the details and said that a 1:1 interview with the hiring manager would take place the following week. As I couldn’t take a day off on such a short notice, I asked whether my interview could take place any time the week after, which proposal of mine got promptly refused, as apparently the hiring manager could attend the interview only on that particular day and no later dates would suit her. My only remaining option was to agree to a Skype call which I could only attend in a nearby cafe during my lunch break, close to the place where I work. The interview took place in a most inconvenient environment, while a baby was crying and people were chatting loudly. The hiring manager briefly explained that the position is a global role and after a brief introduction she asked me about my market entry strategy in a sub-saharan country (essentially a country on which no market research data is available and which country has no history of consumption of the entire product category). After the call the hiring manager said that within three weeks they’d revert to me. Since this didn’t happen I tried to follow up on the process and contacted HR only to be told that the hiring manager had been on holiday and she’d revert to me upon her return. I’ve waited for another two weeks and approached the hiring manager who let me know that now the HR person in charge was on annual leave, but she’d revert to me upon her return. Since I haven’t heard back from them for nearly another month I sent several enquiries to the HR person whom I’d talked to earlier, but apparently she’d moved into another role and ignored all my enquiries in an elegant manner. After this a few more weeks passed, when I finally received a brief email saying that my application hasn’t been successful without giving any specific explanation. In my view the whole process was managed in a very unprofessional and ignorant way and I found the way the interview had been conducted similarly unfair. It was probably one of my worst experiences ever.