There are four parts to the interview process, which took around 20 days.
1) Screening by talent acquisition recruiter
2) Writing assignment
3) One-on-One with marketing manager
4) One-on-One with co-founder
I passed through the first three rounds, and was told by the recruiter that the final round was mainly to assess my confidence, ability to work in a team, and thinking logic. I was told to ensure that I knew what the company was about (this seemed quite a basic thing I was completely ready to answer), which made me think that the interview would not go heavy on the technical, since that had already been covered to some degree in the previous round.
Suffice to say, I was somewhat blindsided at the final interview. The questions that the co-founder, based in Berlin, asked turned out to have heavy emphasis on SEO optimisation, something I had little to no experience with. I did not ever claim to have deep knowledge of SEO in prior conversations or on my CV, which she was referring to throughout this interview.
She criticised my writing assignment heavily, mentioning the lack of keyword research within the headings and linkbacks. She also mentioned that the blog post I had written was quite journalistic in style and asked how I would make it more in line with writing for an enterprise. Now I don’t have problems accepting that I am lacking in this aspect, but why bring me to the final round only to tear apart the assignment, which you apparently passed through? If the assignment was sub-par or not up to expectations, I would have appreciated being dropped at the second round. Throughout the conversation I did not feel like she thought much about the value I could bring to the company. Again, this is fine if it had been communicated earlier.
Around 20 minutes after this interview, I informed the recruiter I was no longer keen to be considered for the role. I feel like my morale was hit by this interview, not to mention it wasted valuable time I carved out because I respected the company and the process. This was clearly not reciprocated. I would advise others to proceed with caution.