I interviewed for an administrative position within the NA Publishing team. My information was submitted internally, and within several days, I received an email from the RC on the team to set up an interview with the office manager. These first two individuals were amazing to work with. The RC was very kind and prompt with her responses, which is such a great indicator of her enthusiasm for her work. The office manager, too, was wonderful to chat with. She asked great questions and, as I'd be working directly with her regularly, I felt that there was a lot of cohesion between our approaches to the work we'd be doing. As we were wrapping up our call, she let me know that I'd be chatting with a producer on the team next, someone I've talked to before. Because we'd talked before about a different role that I did not get, she suggested we both just approach the interview as a brand new situation, which was great advice.
The call with the producer in question was rough. She quickly pointed out that I'd previously applied for a different position, also within NA Publishing, and implied that I'd applied to many positions within Riot and would take whatever I could to get in. This was both insulting and untrue. I've only applied to two roles total within Riot. Previously, I was pursuing a recruiting coordinator position, but after my previous interview with this producer, I'd given myself some time to reconsider whether that was what I was actually passionate for. Because I wasn't sure, I was taking a step back from applying to Riot, and only applied for this new role because it did seem very much like a great fit for me. I communicated to her that I understand why she would be concerned about that, but that I was very enthusiastic about this particular position and that I genuinely believed I would be able to work with the team and help them grow. At no point during the call did I feel that I was being treated as a real candidate because of this predetermined notion she had that I was just throwing applications at the proverbial wall and hoping something would stick. At the end of the call, I assumed I would not move on.
Several days later, however, I received another email from the RC on the team and we coordinated my next call with the head of business development. This call was kind of unorganized, and it became apparent pretty quickly that no one told him that my information was submitted internally. It didn't seem like anyone had talked to him at all about my background, and I felt like he was just looking at my resume for the first time. He, too, questioned my commitment to the role itself, and I again reiterated that I was really enthusiastic about it. The call, again, felt like it was hamstrung from the get go, and while he was a really pleasant guy to chat with, the call was not great and I was not surprised I didn't move on.
I chatted with the team's recruiting coordinator about the feedback I received after the interviews. Again, she was fantastic to work with, and even called me to give specific thoughts. She gave me feedback based on what the team said, and gave me some personal notes about what she thought would be a good idea for me to do next time.
For all of the positive feedback I received (culture fit, desire to get the job done), I was told I did not seem to have a direction with my career. I take issue with this. My mindset with my career has always been organic, expecting change and growth as a part of my work. This has led me to have a huge range of experiences in my work history, because I have the attitude that I can always do more with my role(s). I love learning new things. I love growing as a person and an employee. I love working with people and helping them grow and learn. I communicated this as my passion and was essentially told this was a lack of direction. I felt like I was being punished for not lying and saying that I was singularly passionate about office work. This is deeply distressing, especially because I know several Rioters and their general experience has always been that they felt it was a great environment to grow and learn. Isn't that what "stay hungry, stay humble" is about? Knowing you have more to learn and room to improve?
Honestly, the entire process really discouraged me from applying at Riot again, partially because I'm afraid I'll again be criticized for applying to multiple roles. Moreover, I'm not entirely sure I want to work with people who treat candidates like a checklist to be marked off rather than dynamic individuals.
