A highly disorganized and frustrating recruitment experience. I was contacted by a third-party recruiter who lacked a clear understanding of the role and repeatedly provided inaccurate information about the interview process and job expectations.
Initially, I was told that the position was not research-focused, did not require Chinese language proficiency (since the hiring manager was not ethnically Chinese), and that there would be no coding component in the first round. However, just a week before the interview, I was informed that I needed to prepare for a one-hour LeetCode-style coding session and a 30-minute presentation on my work. A few days later, the format changed again—I was told the coding would be done on PAPER instead.
When the interview took place, I was surprised to find myself speaking with the head of research, who focused entirely on my research background. He was also ethnically Chinese, contradicting what the recruiter said. The interviewer behaved extremely unprofessionally, frequently checking his phone while I’m talking and failing to mute it. While I was presenting, loud noises from him watching social media blared in the background. Additionally, he mentioned that Chinese was the working language - completely contradicting what the recruiter had told me.
After the interview, I learned that my originally scheduled interviewer had left to attend the ICLR conference, and the person I spoke with was a last-minute replacement. Overall, the entire experience felt chaotic and unprofessional. A complete waste of my time.
