The interview process was quick and efficient. However, the experience post interview has left a sour taste in my mouth. For starters, I had a phone screening which went excellent. I was then immediately scheduled for a second interview. During this interview, the interviewer responded to all of my answers with “Makes sense” and a nod. His questions were vague, such as asking me how I would solve a problem brought to my attention by four workers. I asked the interviewer to describe for me a recent example of their team going above and beyond and how they were recognized for their hard work. The interviewer said that the “team leads work very hard and we recognized their hard work by moving the team leads onto a new team and giving them new work to do”. I literally can’t make this up, the response was that if you do good on the team that you will receive more work. After this interview I was given a case study with the promise of an interview to discuss my report. Five pages later, I turned in my case study and received a rejection email no more than 24 hours later. The rejection had no feedback, good or bad, and I immediately knew something was off. I pushed for feedback and was told “the hiring committee had no feedback for you.” Hands down the most “it’s not you, it’s me” response I’ve ever seen. Five pages of work where I created new metrics, performance KPIs, and individual performance plans and nobody can even tell me if it was good? I’m left feeling like the CX department used the assignment as a way to get someone to do work for them without any intention of hiring them. With no feedback provided, I have no idea how the department intends to use my research. If your hiring manager isn’t taking notes and able to provide feedback, that says a whole lot about the type of company you are. I interview at my current role and in a debrief you cannot show up without written feedback. This is poor candidate experience to say the team has nothing to provide. Now, to backtrack, the take-home assignment provided very clear instructions on what I was to accomplish and what the next steps would be. For my particular assignment, the instructions clearly state that there will be an interview post-assignment to review my findings. Only after submitting the assignment (early and at the maximum page amount), I was quickly told that I was denied for the role. When I pushed back and challenged the instructions was I told that the post-interview is never guaranteed. To be clear, this feedback from the recruiter directly contradicts what the assignment itself says. There was no ownership to this mistake. In the end, I am not confident that the role was truly intended for an applicant outside of the company. Instead, my experience leads me to believe that the candidate chosen was likely an internal candidate and that outside applicants, like myself, had not been seriously considered.