Just as the title says, I had a terrible interview experience with a company and I just needed to rant about it.
About two months ago, while finishing up my undergrad, I started applying for jobs so that I could have one lined up by the time I graduate. I applied online for a job, after exceeding all of the suggested qualifications, and the company reached out and requested a phone screening. It is for a research scientist position that I am incredibly excited about. Great! I set it up and the day of the phone screening I sat down next to my phone and waited. No call. “No worries, sometimes life gets in the way” I thought so I called the recruiter that was meant to call me and left a message saying I was still interested in the position and would love to schedule another time for the phone screening. That was on a Tuesday.
As I am walking to volunteer Saturday morning at 9 AM, I get a phone call from the company, “Hey, are you ready to do your phone screening”? wtf. But i really want this job, so I do the phone screening and it goes great! Despite being out of breath, as it was an hour walk to volunteer, I did well and secured a virtual meeting. The virtual meeting goes smoothly and I made it to the final round of interviews… a three hour on-site interview. I am so excited for this job that I don't even care that I have to miss all of my classes for the day to attend the interview.
The day of the interview comes and its multiple managers coming in to interview me. The first one is entirely uninterested, and just asks me how the drive over was. When he finally asked about my undergraduate research, he told me I was wrong about a concept and drew it out for me on the white board (I was not wrong, interestingly, he just thought I was). I just accepted this as a fluke and the next interview goes smoothly. The third interviewer comes in and again tells me my undergraduate research is incorrect and challenges how well I know what I am studying and condescendingly (and incorrectly) described the phenomenon I was studying. Oh well! The last interview goes smoothly and I got a tour of the facility. The hiring manager then walks in, asks when I would like to start, and tells me I'll be hearing back from them shortly.
That was the end of April. I still haven't heard back. I emailed them after two weeks of waiting thanking them again for the interview and asking when I can expect a decision by. Nothing. Radio silence. I am so sick of hiring managers playing this power game over job candidates. I dedicated so much time and sacrificed a lot to attend these interviews and they didn't even have the courtesy to call me back and tell me that I didn't get the job. I am so incredibly frustrated that there isn't even anything I can do to resolve this. And, as a fresh undergraduate, it stings that I was basically told I got the job, and then was never contacted again.