A drawn-out and disrespectful waste of the applicant's time.
SIx rounds of interview and then ghosted:
1) Straightforward recruiter interview + personality/aptitude test
2) Interview with HR person
3) Online interview with COO/founder
4) Interview/presentation with two founders
5) Re-do of the presentation + task, with a clearer brief provided
6) Interview with the newly hired person who I would be reporting to
Six interviews is quite extreme, but they put this down to being a start-up, which was a common excuse during the hiring process. I appreciate the 2nd presentation with the founders was reasonable, but a clearer brief or even job scope would have helped avoid this.
The three aspects that I really did not appreciate as a candidate:
1) The final interview, number six, came back to all the most basic questions covered in interviews 1-3. At this point, I wanted to hang up on the interviewer.
2) Six interviews, drawn out over weeks and months, plus an extensive presentation and task is a bloated process.
3) The most irritating aspect of the process was that after all of the above, I was ghosted on the outcome. I had been communicating with the HR person and promised an update, but eventually, there was just no response. I assume they had gone with another choice and were seeing how probation went.
It was an unpleasant experience that could have been avoided with clearer communication and more respect for people's time.
