This might be one of the most unprofessional interviews I have ever experienced. I'm not saying this as a disgruntled interviewee. I wasn't super invested in this company as I had applied elsewhere as well. However, I've never felt so gracelessly shunned in an interview in my entire life.
I was supposed to have interviewed with four people, each in a one-on-one setting. The first was with an account manager who seemed extremely tense. It seemed as if she came into the interview ready to do battle with me. She didn't smile and spoke very aggressively as if she were trying to intimidate me. I felt like I stayed calm and handled all her questions well and appropriately. The second was the accounts department executive who was much more friendly and personable. After these first two interviews, each about half an hour long, I waited in the meeting room alone for about 10-15 minutes. Then, the HR associate came in and said my interviews would stop here. She said the final two managers who wanted to interview me actually got scheduled last minute for customer meetings, so they would have to schedule Google Hangout interviews with me later that week. However, as she was walking me to the elevator, we passed someone who seemed like a senior level manager who looked confused and said, "What's happening? I thought I was supposed to interview her." The HR associate said "No. No. That's no longer necessary".
I waited for an email that was supposed to schedule my google hangout interviews and never got one. I followed up with the HR associate and never got a reply. Therefore, my only conclusion from this was that the "customer meetings" were an excuse to quickly usher me out because they didn't think it was worth their time to finish my interview process. That, or I completely bombed the first two interviews and said something inappropriate, which I sincerely don't think I did.
The very least they could have done was to have the decency to allow me to finish the entire interview process, especially since I had taken time out of my work schedule to drive out there to see them. If I had said something inappropriate, they should have voiced right then and there that was the reason why my interview was stopped. The only other reason I can think of them stopping the interview was my minimal agency and advertising experience, but they could have easily seen that in my resume and cover letter. So why waste everyone's time by bringing me in if my experience on my resume didn't meet their standards? Also, the HR associate could have followed up with me by replying to my email explaining the situation instead of not responding at all.
If this is what the transparency is like during interviews, I can't imagine what it's like while actually working for the company. The management that I met with seemed extremely young to be in executive roles (maybe mid 20's?). I could definitely see that being the reason for some of their larger egos and need to use intimidation tactics. In my 8 years of management experience, I have learned that humility is the best way to deal with any employee, interviewee or outsider. For a company as large as Hylink, I would think that they should know this. I really hope the higher executives or c-suite members will see this and implement the necessary changes for their management teams to conduct more well mannered interviews. As seen in other interview reviews on Glassdoor, their interviews are clearly making an impact on the company's (or Santa Monica office's) reputation.