I was reached out to by a recruiter regarding a job that would have been a lateral with more pay and likely better benefits. I overall enjoy my current job but this one would have been mostly work from home and a lot closer to my house. It seemed to be a fun new challenge as well. I did my due diligence to make sure it was a legit company.
The first interview was with the recruiter and was already a lot more casual than I'm used to. But it went well enough that she wanted me to meet with the two founders (it's a small-ish start up). That's when things got strange. The first founder was 5-10 minutes late and then never turned his camera on. He started having casual conversation and he very vaguely asked about my experience. It felt very awkward and almost felt like it was me to keep the interview (conversation?) going but I did my best to keep it professional and sell myself.
We were just about to wrap up when the other founder decided to join, about 25 minutes late to a 30-minute interview. The first guy said that we were just about done and the other one was just going to be fine with not talking to me at all i guess?! I said that I was more than happy to answer any questions he had and then he basically was just like “why do you want this job?” I have to admit I got a bit flustered at this point because I was trying to balance answering it but not just restating what I already said to the first guy. It ended very awkwardly and I realized I forgot to ask when i could expect to hear back.
So I emailed the recruiter and haven't heard anything since. I'm not surprised I didn't get it but.. what in the world? I have never experienced anything like that. Even my fast-food job interviews had more structure. Are a lot of start-ups like this?
Needless to say I'm very thankful that I'm happy enough at my current job.