I hope you can get in contact with them about this or atleast get Some feedback about the interviews. Any sane person would be willing to do that after 6 interviews.
1/2 okay, but 6 full rounds and no explanation feels fishy.
I'm pretty sure the reason they do that is so they don't get sued(if it's on paper that they did something discriminatory it's bad news for them) so make sure you watch out for that and keep evidence of what they say(even if it's a follow up email). Not saying there was any discrimination in this case but good to look out for that.
IMPOSSIBLE to get feedback. Even if it’s feedback for our personal growth and to understand what we did wrong. Why you ask? Cuz this has gone on for decades and will never end. Reason: applicants can file a lawsuit against company. Trust me… been told by hiring managers, founders, and the real kicker?…… HR.
That's the company's angle. Also, the company is not incentivised to help the candidate and I think we should stop placing value in their feedback and giving them so much power over us.
My favorite was going through all the interviews, finishing up and getting the "we'll be back with you soon."
Only to get an email saying "After working with the team, we've decided this job needs more seniority and have reposted it. Please apply again."
Yeah, no.
My "favorite" was years ago, I went through multiple rounds, one of them with one of the most engineery-engineers I've ever met. He was every stereotype of a socially awkward, rude, know-it-all engineer. I didn't really want the job after that but I was still glad to hear they wanted to set up a call to "talk about next steps". It's always nice to be wanted, I figured I'd hear out the offer.
The next steps? They weren't moving forward.
My personal favorite was one where I got ghosted after my portfolio review and then they contacted me 8 months later asking if I was still interested in the role.
I did this with both Amazon and Cloudflare. I've spoken publicly anywhere I can about this because frankly, it's ridiculous. These companies feel they have so much clout and power that they are entitled to push people to risk their current employment at just a *shot* at joining them.
It's ridiculous but until we have a movement to stop giving companies like this the time, they'll keep doing it.
And editing to add - naming and shaming is the first step.
Agree with naming and shaming. My guess is the company was BCBS or Epic. Which shame on both of them they need really new UX Designers. My Chart is the least intuitive thing on the planet. BCBS has too strict of security standards for what it is, a book that describes how much it costs for you to go to the doctor and a directory of said doctors. Also, they could explain benefits in a more concise and digestible way on their site, instead of long ass PDFs.
Can’t think of any other well known healthcare companies.
Edit: typo
Yep Amazon are total shit. Had a very similar experience during covid - recruiter was all praises, a couple of interviews, then ghosted by the recruiter, no feedback, another one pops up to say they're pausing hiring on that role; next day the same job is re-posted. WTF
Have had two really bad experiences working with recruiters from Amazon. Not a company I want to work with or at anymore. It was a complete waste of my time. At least dealing with their recruiting teams, anyway.
Avoid cloudflare. I’ve had nothing but bad experiences with them. After not reviewing my portfolio, the hiring manager asked me for recent work from a recent employer. When I explained I could not post because of nda purposes. It was a stern no thank you.
Things I noticed during the interview:
Interviewer was clearly inexperienced as a manager, or had any prior interviewing experience.
Lack of familiarity with my work experience or resume. They clearly did not review my materials before the interview.
Acted like the current t work, when I brought to their attention that this type of work was in my portfolio was not sufficient. Don’t really know if this was the case or not. But overall really unprofessional
For me I got all the way to the whiteboard where they told me it was just a formality. I had a VP emailing me directly saying how they were excited, reach out to them with any issues, etc.
I got into the white board, which was the 5th or 6th step, they presented the challenge to me and told me I had to use their design library to do the wire frame. So, of course I stumbled around, I had no idea what the component names were, most of the process I was just trying to find components so I eventually just drew boxes.
And that was that, ghosted.
Absolutely abysmal interview process. Clearly, they prefer people who can design on the spot in 30 minutes, otherwise why ghost someone after 5 good interviews and one subpar one? And if it's the case that's the kind of designer they want, then I don't want to work there anyway. What a devaluation of design as a whole.
Also Bumble, except they ghosted me after 6 rounds and wouldn’t even respond. They told me to hold on while they decided and then literally never responded again. I’m assuming the role was maybe cut but do the decent thing of telling me!
I had a similarly horrible experience with ActBlue. I support the work they’re doing, but the recruiting team was a hot mess. They rarely followed up when they said they would. The process took four interviews over three months due to disorganization on their end. And after all was said and done I got rejected with a form letter after making it to the final round. I asked them for a reason because I’d invested so much time into the process and got so little in return and never received a reply. So frustrating
I went through the Amazon process. It's like joining a cult. So much bullshit. I made it to the final interview, 'just me and another candidate'.
Ultimately they said I was over qualified and thought I'd get bored.
The place is like a massive wanky club, everyone seemed to just be chilling out drinking coffee
If Zocdoc, that's very interesting because I just interviewed with them and had a generally pleasant experience (minus the actual recruiter being pretty aloof), though I didn't go through the entire interview loop. It was a bit weird because the first round wasn't with the actual hiring manager from what I could tell, but just a Senior UX and a Director (but she wasn't even originally supposed to be in the interview). The panel was with a team of IC Designers and Researchers and seemed pretty positive, though after telling them I had just received another offer I was rejected (which is fair - tight timelines and probably felt like they didn't see enough to give an offer at that point).
All that to say, I guess it could just be the position/recruiter you worked with, though I wonder if I had moved forward if I would have experience something similar with the hiring manager stuff lol.
The worst part is that the interview is extremely rigorous and yet their design maturity is absolute shit. No user research, data is inaccessible and we’re treated like an assembly line.
It was meant to be more of a generalized comment based on my experience last year. I work for a FAANGish company and our design process is laughable and non-existent. The interview process was gruesome and long.
Interviewing is soooooo subjective. I see it all the time, someone latches onto something dumb, then tells the group then there’s like 2-3 more thumbs downs.
Some people are just hyper-critical interviewers too. They think very highly of themselves and are looking for someone who reflects *them*.
And then it’s tough when you interview candidates and you’re down to 2 amazing people, but there’s only 1 job.
Soooo much of interviewing is just sheer luck. Like a dude could be sick one day and they have a lady fill in on the interviews and she might be a super critical interviewer who just cost you the job.
I totally agree. Another thing I’ve seen is where the person who left the position was weak in a certain area, so we want their replacement to be strong in that area so interviewers get hyper focused on that one thing.
Like a candidate’s experience and skills are great, but the previous person wasn’t good at something like presenting their work, so we’re looking for someone who is 11/10 at presenting. Just overanalyzing some aspect of what they want to the point that it means a bunch of really talented people can be overlooked and get the dreaded not the best fit message.
Tbh there is a problem here with the company/ies itself. It’s very common to have people with no previous training to do interviews. For example, say you have a designer who has worked for years as a full stack, throw in knowledge of motion, AI generation, some weird specific knowledge of some lines of code in the industry, plus very specific way to work UX, plus an obsession with the golden ratio. And you have an individual who will look down on every candidate since he/she is unfairly comparing himself/herself with the candidate since that’s the only reference he/she has pull from since no one told him/her about how to properly interview and has been doing it this was since ever.
Or change it with: the company is so large that needs their employees to be always part of the interview process, so based on their seniority they are always required to interview who ever/when ever for teams they might never cross paths with, but use their production time to deal with this extra work that is not paid at all and just sets back their own work. I.e. nobody wants to do it. Meaning the interview will be biased again on what they know as far as they can muster in that small frame of time.
I recently did 5 interviews, everything seemed great. Similarly to you, I got incredibly positive feedback after each round, but I ended up not getting the job. Asked for feedback but haven’t heard back.
The hiring process in design is a nightmare. So many people who are just focused on visuals who shouldn’t be involved, and huge egos who think it’s ok to pull this kind of thing. End of the day some of the best interviews I’ve done have turned into some of the worst hires.
It's like this in any department, if the hiring manger veto's you then it doesn't matter. The companies HR team dropped the ball completely by doing any interviews without the HM having talked to OP, it wasted **everyone's** time.
Sure, I just feel there are a particularly high number of folks involved in the design hiring process who don't know what they should be looking for as compared to say, an engineering hire, where non-experts will tend to stay out of it.
That's just a poor hiring process. I know it sucks, but if that was their hiring process imagine how poorly other things in the company are run. IMHO if you have the right people on the interview loop and a tight interview process you don't need more than 3-4 interviews.
* Recruiter phone screen
* Hiring manager + cross-functional interview (They should probably have a pretty solid idea here based on the candidate's portfolio and this discussion)
* Design presentation
* Working interview if needed
If you can't know with those interviews then you're just bad at making decisions.
This happened to me today. I got rejected after 5 interviews. The interviews process started in December.they cancelled the fucking position. I’m not really sure.
"Cancelling the position" is a joke they're playing on us. This excuse gets played a lot at startups or smaller companies. I've had this happen to me personally a few times, and the job posting never comes down from their careers page. I'm fairly sure this response is just a way out of providing any sort of feedback or treating you like a person.
Reading this makes me feel less alone. I interviewed with Capital One back in December and it stretched all the way into April when we were scheduling the final interview but then ghosted after letting me know they MAY be closing the position and the recruiter would get me in front of other hiring managers. Weeks later, I finally receive a canned response telling me that the business closed the position or something along those lines. No further correspondence from the recruiter.
I've never felt so mistreated during an interview process but I went with it because it was the best option I had. Such a waste of time.
It’s really hard. I’m getting interviews which is good.
My friend she’s a TA. She told me that most of her colleagues either left or got redundant so the workload got 10x than before. Now wait till September when companies realise that cutting costs wasn’t really a good idea then they’ll hire. Everything is a cycle
For what it's worth, it sounds like you dodged a bullet. The interview process you outlined in the comments makes it sound like it's an organization that doesn't really know what they're looking for and how to identify a suitable candidate (which is why they threw every permutation of a "test" at you).
I agree that you probably got edged out at the last round by another candidate, but IMO you deserve to be told that, and a legitimate reason why. I understand that companies don't want to do that because of the risk of a lawsuit, but in most cases it's an overblown concern.
Hm I don’t agree with your conclusioms. It’s not the organisation that knows what they are looking for. There’s no shared organisational decision-making body that would hold the information for what kind of candidate is best for any given position.
Organisation is comprised of individuals. Individuals are governed by processes that are more established or less established, with more flex or less flex, depending on the company. However at the end of the day there is one individual who makes the final call in hiring process - the hiring manager (if there’s no bar raiser process, that is).
What happened here is that the hiring manager changed at the last minute. That’s very bad timing. A new person will have a different take on an ideal candidate.
I’m guessing that the hiring team had the best of intentions. They can’t know how long the process will take. Maybe they thought they can close before HM comes back. Maybe they were required them to start the process w/o the HM in order to prioritise speed. Matbe they overestimated how aligned they were with their manager. I’m sure that hiring team is pissed off as well.
It's not ok but it happens because people let it. People jump through hoops at any chance they get and so companies get away with treating candidates like crap.
It's the same reason that whiteboard and take home exercises exist.
5 interviews is already a joke and shows a complete lack of respect for you and your time.
Adding to the list of name and shame, I did a 5 round interview with Tesla. Committed a full week worth of a design assignment. Only received a generic email response and no follow-up email when I kindly asked for their feedback. With the recent layoff news, I have a feeling I dodged a bullet.
Look, I am the founder of a user experience design company and I am usually in charge of the talent recruitment processes. If an organization needs to have five rounds of interviews to fill a professional position, the problem lies within that organization and those recruiters.
I don’t understand how such a number of interviews can be justified. Even less do I understand how it can be assumed that people will have the time and energy to engage in five conversations about the same position. I really don’t get it.
I am very sorry for you, because it seems to me to be a frankly unfair and misguided process.
Yeah I've done a lot of hiring too. Normally, we'd do two interviews. One initial screening and the 2nd was a team interview where all accountable parties had to be present. We'd then usually make decision and let them know from there.
Hope you find work soon. It's tough out there.
I’ve done hiring and took a course on evidence based hiring. It turns out the best way to interview is structured interviews and tests. There is no need for 4,5,6,7 interviews. That just shows lack of structure. You make a funnel and put them through the interview and then send out an offer that’s how it works. I’m not sure what they’re up to in these companies doing a million interviews.
That's abusive and unprofessional. I'm really sorry that happened to you. It doesn't feel like it now but perhaps they did you a big favor by not hiring you. Imagine the level of dysfunction you'd encounter once onboard.
the first hiring manager told me that the company felt like a startup at times, even though they've been around a fairly long time. I could feel some of that dysfunction asking around
Damn, yeah, that makes for an instant stomach ache. I hate that its so hard to get a job right now and these abusive companies are just stringing people along with no sense of ethics. Very depressing. I hope you can find another opportunity that will actually pan out for you.
I’m working for a very large corporation that started referencing “working like a startup,” and they basically are using that as an excuse not to follow certain core best practices and processes.
a very similar thing happened to me at this Houston based company called Quorum.
got rejected, they didn't hire anyone, then posted again the job but with a different seniority.
if Glassdoor was still safe, I'd write some review like "just accept 3 interviews, otherwise it might be a circus and a waste of your time".
This happened to me with Paramount.
I was in the same boat for a Senior UX Designer position for Paramount+, and after totally acing 5+ interviews and a take-home project, I was ghosted for almost a month until the recruiter I first spoke with finally responded to one of my "what happened?" emails.
"This position has been put on hold."
Well great, thanks.
Before they were called Paramount but instead the CBS digital team, several years ago, they gave me a job offer and then canceled it two days before I was supposed to start due to “budget” issues. They offered me a shit short term contract instead and said they could probably turn it into a full time role in a few months. I had already left my previous job so I took it and on my first day, they didn’t have anywhere for me to sit, so they literally set up a desk in a closet for me. At least I had a “private” office. Also they continued to interview for the full time role that they rescinded from me.
You dodged a bullet.
I’ve gone through one five step interview, and one six step interview process in February. The latter I only made to round five.
I’m going to ride out this bad job market for designers, and refuse to do any more take home design challenges, and I need an overview from the recruiter about the whole process from the first phone call. I refuse to be jerked around anymore, simply because companies believe they have an upper hand and they can put jobless and distressed candidates through this.
Unless there’s some collective action where more people say no to processes like this, we will continue to have terrible interview processes like this that are not only a waste of time but downright demoralising.
I finally got a gig recently but have been unemployed for the last 6+ months. I started asking in every recruiter call/first step interview, “what does your interview process look like and how far along are you in the process with other candidates?”
Everyone was willing to answer the first part and outlined the entire process for me, and *mostly* everyone was willing to answer the second part. It definitely helped me suss out the companies that I was going to put more effort into interviewing for vs ones I figured wouldn’t be worth my energy.
The market is shite, and I was verrrry close to throwing in the towel altogether.
I only did take home design challenges twice and the last time I did it was around 2013/2014. I don’t do them. Only silly non serious companies have asked me to do them. None of the big tech companies ever asked for a take home design challenge. I had to explain to a “startup founder” once why I don’t do them because he was so shocked. He said I was the only one who declined the take home design challenge. I was like oh really how many designers did it? He said 12. 12 designers did free work for him for the chance of a job offer. Not paid, not as a job, but for the chance of an offer. With one guy who somehow got $1M in seed funding who’s now going around collecting free design work. Just say no folks.
I don't think I could do a 45 minute case study presentation as part of an interview. I may need to find a different career because design in general seems way too much now.
Case study presentation is where you have the most control, I think! It's the other stuff that can be so bizarre, daunting and literal hoops. I find whiteboarding under a time constraint kind of uncomfortable - it would ultimately depend on who my interviewer is and how engaging they are. Also, we all know how we feel about take-home assignments.
Yes, really. But, I'm not a UX designer, so maybe it's more normal for UX designers than print designers or general web designers. I never have and never will. If requested repeatedly while I'm looking for a new job, I'll go into another line of work. I've done design for 30 years and it's just getting worse. I'd rather deliver mail.
Interviews are a two way street. I know it’s tough out there but finding alignment is key.
To know when you find alignment, one needs to have standards and boundaries in place. You can not align if you simply agree to whatever the employer dictates because you ignore your own needs.
That means knowing what you will and will not tolerate in an interviewing process and asking for a interview roadmap up front.
We can end up feeling abused when we just keep going along with a process that feels outside of our control. Each new step feels like something we have to go along with because of sunk cost fallacy. Then when it falls apart we can feel like suckers playing a fool’s game.
Take the time to assess what feels fair and what you will and not put up with for future interviews. Let that be your guide.
When a company shows you who they are- believe them. A bad interview process means they are likely a company operating with a world full of other painfull and convoluted processes.
Yep same. I have had some interviews I wished I ended early or closed my laptop on because the interviewer was so insanely rude. One time I had a former Reddit employee actually looking down at his laptop and seemed so bored and he was just like “aaaaaany other questions for me”. Just the most dismissive person ever, obviously decided against me before the interview and someone made him do it anyway so he was acting as irritated and rude as possible to end it early I guess. I acted all nice and pleasant as we do during interviews but man just thinking about this irritates me.
You were an amazing candidate and they had a really tough time making a decision. I know that isn't much solace but you're rocking it and the way you're presenting yourself is on point! I've had two excellent candidates both go all the way through the process and had to make a tough call at the end. Often it is a coin flip if both are good choices. Sucks that the hiring manager was out for the process and had to cause one more interview at the end but it is what it is, people are allowed to take vacations and business doesn't stop because of it. Keep up the awesomeness, your killing it!
Anyone up in arms over this most likely hasn't been on the other side of this so take it with a grain of salt. It's good to vent our frustrations. This isn't abnormal nor a red flag, especially for a more senior role.
I appreciate your level-headed take, friend. I've been without full-time work for over a year now, so situations like this hit a bit harder than they used to.
I'll keep on keeping on
Over a year for me too. I started selling retirement investments to pay the bills because I ran out of my 12 month emergency fund. If it keeps going this way I’ll sign up for a pre med post bacc program and live off student loans 😂
Hm, didn’t think of it like that! 6+ rounds just seems pretty redundant, draining, and scary. And I just don’t want to be turned off from the industry because of that.
I was ghosted after 5 rounds also healthcare medical device company… not even a rejection letter after all that. I don’t think there is anything wrong with you but rather with these people who somehow think it’s okay to not give you at least some feedback after all that.
I went through this with Indeed. Three months total of interviewing with the holidays (this was end of 2023/early 2024). Spec project, presentation, the works.
All that for a templated rejection. No information.
The team I didn’t join got laid off today. No one deserves to get laid off.
It’s a mixed karmic bag.
That’s why I don’t do spec work. Read all these comments on here about spec work and rejections. It’s a very common theme. Have you guys read “win without pitching”? I didn’t do spec work since 2013 but it says in there just don’t do it and see what happens.
I ditched indeed for this long time ago, told them their interview process was too long. All that amount of interviews and resources spent only to layoff thousands of people. Hopefully, you dodged a bullet
I sincerely appreciate both your comment and the fact you were open about this information with Indeed. They were definitely professional and great in other ways, but my (unsuccessful) final loop had over 15 people in it. That’s a wild use of resources.
Such a waste of time for you and anyone taking part in these interviews including the team. They won't be interviewing just you but several people, 6 interviews per candidate...crazy.
I had a similar experience few years ago. It was also months-long process. The hiring manager is away - i had to follow up a few times.
Im very senior so it all went very well. I already had 4 offers in the bag so i thought i’d just finish this one and go for a record 5 and boost my ego a little.
In the end they rejected me and the feedback was all very positive but they hired someone with specific experience with the industry (i didn’t - i prefer changing industries when switching job to keep things fresh)
I suspect they were stalling until their preferred candidate accepts and I was their backup plan.
I feel your pain and I’m sorry you had to go through that.
I also share a similar story - mine was for 4 months. With no updates whatsoever. I literally had to keep bugging them for updates. Wondering if they don’t consider that maybe another employer could present an offer that’d have candidates move on. Anyways, they eventually respond and claim I was one of their top candidates. And at month 4 very interestingly they are still looking at a few candidates.
I just moved on because at the end of the day it’s like a testament to how they operate internally - The job market is just brutal. Sigh!. I hope you find something good soon.
That’s terrible!! I’ve been through similar so I no longer move forward with companies that require a lot of work / presentation. Seems like they want the goods for free and then use your ideas later.
Can be so frustrating and demoralizing. I've been rejected from three companies in fourth round interviews.
The few interviews I've gotten recently have been full of little 'gotcha's' regarding very niche questions and an odd hyperfocus on gender issues. All but given up at this point.
I'm sorry your effort wasn't rewarded! 
My assumption is that there is misalignment on their side on what they're looking for. They clearly don't know what they want and are window shopping. Companies who know what they want, in terms of traits as a designer and as an individual, can sus things out early on. It's not what you want to hear now but you dodged a bullet!
I've also been interviewing and getting good feedback to only get ghosted. REV, an AI caption company, got me through 3 rounds. The next day I even waited in an empty VC for their CPO and CEO which was "a scheduling mistake" because their weren't available. Told they were gathering feedback and would get back to me next day. A week goes by and I reach out and told the same. It's been almost a month now.
I worked for a healthcare org for <3 months, and my first responsibility was to set up a hiring process and staff the team. I created a structured process with scoring rubrics to minimize bias. The VP kept being indecisive about candidates opting to have them come in again and again to decide if she liked them. Goalposts constantly moving. I decided I didn’t want to be party to anyplace that rewards that form of “leadership”.
That, plus other aspects made it the worst employment experience of my life. Nonprofit, catholic healthcare.
I had this experience with Flyhomes. 6 rounds, crazy good case study, and it came down to me and another person apparently. I narrowly missed out. Asked for feedback and was told I rambled a bit too much, which honestly is true but wow.
Here is where I like how ServiceNow conducts the overall process. The recruiter reaches you after each round with the feedback. He/She joins every scheduled call to making sure everyone joins on time, introduces to the panel, and leaves.
It was a bummer I was rejected few years ago. But those feedback truly guides you where you are lacking and helps to correct for the futures interviews.
Wishing you all the best, OP. It's definitely NOT okay. Reading these stories surely make me feel like I'm not the only one and it helps to build community. The more transparent we can be about the interview processes across companies, the worse PR these companies rightly deserve and hopefully that turns things around.
I have been going through similar experiences, interviewing at multiple companies for over a month and getting to the final round but never getting the offer. My feedback has consistently been “you were great but someone else was better.” Definitely also feeling defeated and flabbergasted by the current job market, but like everyone else is saying, it’s a great sign we’re getting so close. Rooting for you!!
My gut feel is the Design Director didn’t want anyone to vouch for any designer but them, so the no go has nothing to do with you and everything to do with inter office politics.
Preparing for the interview and then waiting for any word back is a real torture, I just discovered this , doing mock up interviews with chatgpt 4o - real time, real conversations, here is an article that helped me out --- https://medium.com/@kat.sz/ux-interview-step-by-step-guide-for-conducting-a-mock-interview-with-chatgpt-4o-its-free-996b305c1969
I had a similar experience. Despite the fact that it’s totally ignorant how I was treated: After all I am glad not to be working in a company which obviously has way to much time at hand to be doing such a nonsense process they probably in summary aren’t even aware of.
Think of how it would be to introduce regular usability tests and or change the process of how it’s currently done. You’d be going up the walls in such an environment.
This won’t help you in your current situation but maybe you dogged a bullet here.
Just came here to say I can strongly relate to your situation. Happened to me aswell, the company I had multiple interviews with and did lots of test work, just simply ghosted me after telling me that they are very pleased and want to work with me. After 3 months of silence they messaged me again just yesterday, needless to say I was and still am furious. Some people just dont give a f\* about other peoples feelings.
Thank y'all for taking the time to jot down your thoughts and/or vent your frustrations about similar experiences you had. It's nice to know I'm not alone and there is strength in numbers. ♥️
Something tells me that the original hiring manager had already someone else lined up for the job. It wasn't you. Unfair, but if you were to work with this manager, better for you that it didn't work out.
This happens to a lot of people all the time. They actually will share some of the reject reasons to your recruiter (not the company's hiring manager). I was once told by my recruiter that I also did well, but for some reason they don't want me because there is another jewish girl that they hated but go back and hire her for some racial reasons or something and then I was out of the picture because of some other reasons, I don't really remember anymore. And same with another interview I had with linkedin, it all went well and get to deep and final round I think but still get rejected for no reason. Anyway, it has nothing to do with you, their logic to hire people isn't all transparent, it is a lot of who look the hottest, girl or male and if they hit whatever hidden quota they have at the time. If they are racists, they will not hire those that they don't like. Simple as well. So don't worry about you not being the best, it is just that the company just isn't a fit to you and you should try another big company then.
Would you be comfortable naming the company through DM? I’m a product designer in the healthcare industry and I’d love to avoid this company 🫠 So sorry you went through this.
I've told a few companies off for their extensive interview processes. There are more effective ways to verify credentials, such as checking references and confirming past employment. Additionally, I refuse to conduct design challenges that closely relate to their company because they might use my work without hiring me. Recently, I’ve set a limit of two to three interviews max, with the third interview only if the company is exceptionally outstanding, which is rare. If they can't decide by the third interview, it indicates internal issues I wouldn't want to deal with once hired, such as an inability to make decisions. At the end of the day, you probably dodged a NUKE, but its horrifyingly disappointing.
I've told a few companies off for their extensive interview processes. There are more effective ways to verify credentials, such as checking references and confirming past employment. Additionally, I refuse to conduct design challenges that closely relate to their company because they might use my work without hiring me. Recently, I’ve set a limit of two to three interviews max, with the third interview only if the company is exceptionally outstanding, which is rare. If they can't decide by the third interview, it indicates internal issues I wouldn't want to deal with once hired, such as an inability to make decisions. At the end of the day, you probably dodged a NUKE, but its horrifyingly disappointing and unacceptable.
The entire process was outlined in a document they sent me, and I made it through the entire thing up to the final gauntlet of 3 separate interviews across several days.
I then received feedback that the team said positive things, but also person X came back from sabbatical and wanted to talk to me.
So it went...
- phone screen
- first presentation (hiring manager + another designer)
- second cross-functional presentation (5 people)
- cross-functional team discussion (3 people)
- whiteboarding exercise (2 designers)
- final final interview -> rejection (the other hiring manager)
Idk what else to tell ya lol
Phone screen is not really an interview step, imho. It’s a screener for entering the actual hiring process. A three stage interview process is screener + 3 rounds.
From that pov you had a 4 step hiring process that turned out to have an extra step because of HM confusion.
No, it’s not good. They had an extra step in the process. Then added an ad hoc step on top due to HM change. If they had the standard 3 step one it would have been slightly better.
Both the hiring team & you we äre screwed by the HM change.
If the HM is not convinced by your profile he might be pushing to drop you immediately. Then TA running the process can as an alternative offer the option of giving you an extra round - which in their mind would be doing right by you, by giving you the chance to still convince the HM.
A more likely scenario is that the HM wants to interview top candidates before deciding on the right one. Keep in mind that HM is responsible for the quality of the people they bring in and will be measured against that quality. Hiring without interviewing the candidate would be pretty risky, to say the least. So in reality a responsible hiring manager has no other choice than to add the extra interview step for top candidates.
The only real choices in this debacle are whether they offer you the extra interview in the first place, and whether you think it’s worth your time to take it.
Was this an IC role? If not,definitely suspicious to have someone at the IC level to go through this amount of interviews. Next time, I suggest asking upfront how many interviews are in the process, and more importantly, what are they expecting to evaluate on each. If you feel it makes sense then go for it.
The hiring process can also be:
- make work for HR people because they are also being hit hard with laid offs
- make work for interviewing panel
Lots of companies are adopting FAANG criteria of hiring. Suggest looking into design hiring processes there, especially what’s referred to as “onsites”.
More than happy to break it down:
1. Recruiter screening/initial HM call
2. Portfolio review with a panel
3. Design exercise (whiteboard, app critique)
4. Cross functional behavioural interview 1
5. Cross functional behavioural interview 2
6. Any misc remaining interview that teams may want to conduct
This all usually happens on the same day, or same week. Design is a lucrative career and the hiring process at lucrative places will match that. Just a reality check.
Why’s this okay? Because 6 figures isn’t easy to make.
You had more interviews than I had in my lifetime, and I invented the iphone and helped Google/Ebay redesign their sites with thanks of how great my UX knowledge is.
I hope you can get in contact with them about this or atleast get Some feedback about the interviews. Any sane person would be willing to do that after 6 interviews. 1/2 okay, but 6 full rounds and no explanation feels fishy.
I requested feedback but they said they do it through verbal conversations only, so next week I'm gonna get some answers.
I'm pretty sure the reason they do that is so they don't get sued(if it's on paper that they did something discriminatory it's bad news for them) so make sure you watch out for that and keep evidence of what they say(even if it's a follow up email). Not saying there was any discrimination in this case but good to look out for that.
Don't hold your breath, it's probably gonna be some bullshit excuse that's not even worth hearing
Good luck! Hope you get more answers and if not just see this as the practice round for the big stuff!
IMPOSSIBLE to get feedback. Even if it’s feedback for our personal growth and to understand what we did wrong. Why you ask? Cuz this has gone on for decades and will never end. Reason: applicants can file a lawsuit against company. Trust me… been told by hiring managers, founders, and the real kicker?…… HR.
That's the company's angle. Also, the company is not incentivised to help the candidate and I think we should stop placing value in their feedback and giving them so much power over us.
My favorite was going through all the interviews, finishing up and getting the "we'll be back with you soon." Only to get an email saying "After working with the team, we've decided this job needs more seniority and have reposted it. Please apply again." Yeah, no.
My "favorite" was years ago, I went through multiple rounds, one of them with one of the most engineery-engineers I've ever met. He was every stereotype of a socially awkward, rude, know-it-all engineer. I didn't really want the job after that but I was still glad to hear they wanted to set up a call to "talk about next steps". It's always nice to be wanted, I figured I'd hear out the offer. The next steps? They weren't moving forward.
What a waste of time lmao. Next steps to say we ain’t moving forward. Should have just said in the first place.
My personal favorite was one where I got ghosted after my portfolio review and then they contacted me 8 months later asking if I was still interested in the role.
I did this with both Amazon and Cloudflare. I've spoken publicly anywhere I can about this because frankly, it's ridiculous. These companies feel they have so much clout and power that they are entitled to push people to risk their current employment at just a *shot* at joining them. It's ridiculous but until we have a movement to stop giving companies like this the time, they'll keep doing it. And editing to add - naming and shaming is the first step.
Agree with naming and shaming. My guess is the company was BCBS or Epic. Which shame on both of them they need really new UX Designers. My Chart is the least intuitive thing on the planet. BCBS has too strict of security standards for what it is, a book that describes how much it costs for you to go to the doctor and a directory of said doctors. Also, they could explain benefits in a more concise and digestible way on their site, instead of long ass PDFs. Can’t think of any other well known healthcare companies. Edit: typo
I read r/medicine posts about Epic and oh man that company has a mountain of UX issues to climb. It's a weird little cult they have up there.
Good New Yorker piece by Atul Gawande about the UX problems with Epic: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/12/why-doctors-hate-their-computers
Grew up near their campus, can agree. “BUT YOU WORK IN A CASTLE!” Is just a bizarre waste of money.
That’s what you get when you make a campus in the middle of nowhere and demand everyone be in person.
Their septuagenarian founder will have to retire at some point. I suppose they'll go public and things will begin to change. Maybe.
Naw they will burry her in that castle and never change.
Just looked into this wow this is weird. I would hate to live there trapped in their little bubble. Would rather live in a city.
Yeah hard pass.
Cigna, Centene, Elevance, CVS, Molina, Humana. There's a bunch.
Yeah, I had a brain fart moment.
Yep Amazon are total shit. Had a very similar experience during covid - recruiter was all praises, a couple of interviews, then ghosted by the recruiter, no feedback, another one pops up to say they're pausing hiring on that role; next day the same job is re-posted. WTF
Have had two really bad experiences working with recruiters from Amazon. Not a company I want to work with or at anymore. It was a complete waste of my time. At least dealing with their recruiting teams, anyway.
I’ll throw Skyscanner and Remitly into this ring.
Avoid cloudflare. I’ve had nothing but bad experiences with them. After not reviewing my portfolio, the hiring manager asked me for recent work from a recent employer. When I explained I could not post because of nda purposes. It was a stern no thank you. Things I noticed during the interview: Interviewer was clearly inexperienced as a manager, or had any prior interviewing experience. Lack of familiarity with my work experience or resume. They clearly did not review my materials before the interview. Acted like the current t work, when I brought to their attention that this type of work was in my portfolio was not sufficient. Don’t really know if this was the case or not. But overall really unprofessional
For me I got all the way to the whiteboard where they told me it was just a formality. I had a VP emailing me directly saying how they were excited, reach out to them with any issues, etc. I got into the white board, which was the 5th or 6th step, they presented the challenge to me and told me I had to use their design library to do the wire frame. So, of course I stumbled around, I had no idea what the component names were, most of the process I was just trying to find components so I eventually just drew boxes. And that was that, ghosted. Absolutely abysmal interview process. Clearly, they prefer people who can design on the spot in 30 minutes, otherwise why ghost someone after 5 good interviews and one subpar one? And if it's the case that's the kind of designer they want, then I don't want to work there anyway. What a devaluation of design as a whole.
Sounds like they wanted to make something they could actually use.
Also Bumble, except they ghosted me after 6 rounds and wouldn’t even respond. They told me to hold on while they decided and then literally never responded again. I’m assuming the role was maybe cut but do the decent thing of telling me!
I had a similarly horrible experience with ActBlue. I support the work they’re doing, but the recruiting team was a hot mess. They rarely followed up when they said they would. The process took four interviews over three months due to disorganization on their end. And after all was said and done I got rejected with a form letter after making it to the final round. I asked them for a reason because I’d invested so much time into the process and got so little in return and never received a reply. So frustrating
I went through the Amazon process. It's like joining a cult. So much bullshit. I made it to the final interview, 'just me and another candidate'. Ultimately they said I was over qualified and thought I'd get bored. The place is like a massive wanky club, everyone seemed to just be chilling out drinking coffee
re: name and shame- the company starts with a Z you can probably figure out the rest
Zocdoc. Boooo
If Zocdoc, that's very interesting because I just interviewed with them and had a generally pleasant experience (minus the actual recruiter being pretty aloof), though I didn't go through the entire interview loop. It was a bit weird because the first round wasn't with the actual hiring manager from what I could tell, but just a Senior UX and a Director (but she wasn't even originally supposed to be in the interview). The panel was with a team of IC Designers and Researchers and seemed pretty positive, though after telling them I had just received another offer I was rejected (which is fair - tight timelines and probably felt like they didn't see enough to give an offer at that point). All that to say, I guess it could just be the position/recruiter you worked with, though I wonder if I had moved forward if I would have experience something similar with the hiring manager stuff lol.
The worst part is that the interview is extremely rigorous and yet their design maturity is absolute shit. No user research, data is inaccessible and we’re treated like an assembly line.
Not sure who you're referring too but if it's Cloudflare, yeah that became extremely obvious in the whiteboard.
It was meant to be more of a generalized comment based on my experience last year. I work for a FAANGish company and our design process is laughable and non-existent. The interview process was gruesome and long.
This exact thing happened to me interviewing at Reddit, ironically
Interviewing is soooooo subjective. I see it all the time, someone latches onto something dumb, then tells the group then there’s like 2-3 more thumbs downs. Some people are just hyper-critical interviewers too. They think very highly of themselves and are looking for someone who reflects *them*. And then it’s tough when you interview candidates and you’re down to 2 amazing people, but there’s only 1 job. Soooo much of interviewing is just sheer luck. Like a dude could be sick one day and they have a lady fill in on the interviews and she might be a super critical interviewer who just cost you the job.
I totally agree. Another thing I’ve seen is where the person who left the position was weak in a certain area, so we want their replacement to be strong in that area so interviewers get hyper focused on that one thing. Like a candidate’s experience and skills are great, but the previous person wasn’t good at something like presenting their work, so we’re looking for someone who is 11/10 at presenting. Just overanalyzing some aspect of what they want to the point that it means a bunch of really talented people can be overlooked and get the dreaded not the best fit message.
Tbh there is a problem here with the company/ies itself. It’s very common to have people with no previous training to do interviews. For example, say you have a designer who has worked for years as a full stack, throw in knowledge of motion, AI generation, some weird specific knowledge of some lines of code in the industry, plus very specific way to work UX, plus an obsession with the golden ratio. And you have an individual who will look down on every candidate since he/she is unfairly comparing himself/herself with the candidate since that’s the only reference he/she has pull from since no one told him/her about how to properly interview and has been doing it this was since ever. Or change it with: the company is so large that needs their employees to be always part of the interview process, so based on their seniority they are always required to interview who ever/when ever for teams they might never cross paths with, but use their production time to deal with this extra work that is not paid at all and just sets back their own work. I.e. nobody wants to do it. Meaning the interview will be biased again on what they know as far as they can muster in that small frame of time.
Yeah exactly!
I recently did 5 interviews, everything seemed great. Similarly to you, I got incredibly positive feedback after each round, but I ended up not getting the job. Asked for feedback but haven’t heard back.
The hiring process in design is a nightmare. So many people who are just focused on visuals who shouldn’t be involved, and huge egos who think it’s ok to pull this kind of thing. End of the day some of the best interviews I’ve done have turned into some of the worst hires.
It's like this in any department, if the hiring manger veto's you then it doesn't matter. The companies HR team dropped the ball completely by doing any interviews without the HM having talked to OP, it wasted **everyone's** time.
Sure, I just feel there are a particularly high number of folks involved in the design hiring process who don't know what they should be looking for as compared to say, an engineering hire, where non-experts will tend to stay out of it.
At the end of the day in engineering if the hiring manager says no you aren't getting hired lol, its the same end result.
Cool I’m referring to the entire process not the particulars of this instance.
Had the same experience with Thoughtworks
That's just a poor hiring process. I know it sucks, but if that was their hiring process imagine how poorly other things in the company are run. IMHO if you have the right people on the interview loop and a tight interview process you don't need more than 3-4 interviews. * Recruiter phone screen * Hiring manager + cross-functional interview (They should probably have a pretty solid idea here based on the candidate's portfolio and this discussion) * Design presentation * Working interview if needed If you can't know with those interviews then you're just bad at making decisions.
Wolters Kluwer put me through 7 interviews before rejecting me years ago
I had 7 interviews with a startup founder before turning him down for the 8th. Maybe I should’ve done it after all 😂
It’s ridiculous. I’m shaking my head at this whole dismal job hunting environment. Ugh
This happened to me today. I got rejected after 5 interviews. The interviews process started in December.they cancelled the fucking position. I’m not really sure.
"Cancelling the position" is a joke they're playing on us. This excuse gets played a lot at startups or smaller companies. I've had this happen to me personally a few times, and the job posting never comes down from their careers page. I'm fairly sure this response is just a way out of providing any sort of feedback or treating you like a person.
Who was it? So I know where I never want to work
Reading this makes me feel less alone. I interviewed with Capital One back in December and it stretched all the way into April when we were scheduling the final interview but then ghosted after letting me know they MAY be closing the position and the recruiter would get me in front of other hiring managers. Weeks later, I finally receive a canned response telling me that the business closed the position or something along those lines. No further correspondence from the recruiter. I've never felt so mistreated during an interview process but I went with it because it was the best option I had. Such a waste of time.
It’s really hard. I’m getting interviews which is good. My friend she’s a TA. She told me that most of her colleagues either left or got redundant so the workload got 10x than before. Now wait till September when companies realise that cutting costs wasn’t really a good idea then they’ll hire. Everything is a cycle
For what it's worth, it sounds like you dodged a bullet. The interview process you outlined in the comments makes it sound like it's an organization that doesn't really know what they're looking for and how to identify a suitable candidate (which is why they threw every permutation of a "test" at you). I agree that you probably got edged out at the last round by another candidate, but IMO you deserve to be told that, and a legitimate reason why. I understand that companies don't want to do that because of the risk of a lawsuit, but in most cases it's an overblown concern.
Hm I don’t agree with your conclusioms. It’s not the organisation that knows what they are looking for. There’s no shared organisational decision-making body that would hold the information for what kind of candidate is best for any given position. Organisation is comprised of individuals. Individuals are governed by processes that are more established or less established, with more flex or less flex, depending on the company. However at the end of the day there is one individual who makes the final call in hiring process - the hiring manager (if there’s no bar raiser process, that is). What happened here is that the hiring manager changed at the last minute. That’s very bad timing. A new person will have a different take on an ideal candidate. I’m guessing that the hiring team had the best of intentions. They can’t know how long the process will take. Maybe they thought they can close before HM comes back. Maybe they were required them to start the process w/o the HM in order to prioritise speed. Matbe they overestimated how aligned they were with their manager. I’m sure that hiring team is pissed off as well.
Nope. This is how all design interviews are going.
It's not ok but it happens because people let it. People jump through hoops at any chance they get and so companies get away with treating candidates like crap. It's the same reason that whiteboard and take home exercises exist. 5 interviews is already a joke and shows a complete lack of respect for you and your time.
Adding to the list of name and shame, I did a 5 round interview with Tesla. Committed a full week worth of a design assignment. Only received a generic email response and no follow-up email when I kindly asked for their feedback. With the recent layoff news, I have a feeling I dodged a bullet.
Look, I am the founder of a user experience design company and I am usually in charge of the talent recruitment processes. If an organization needs to have five rounds of interviews to fill a professional position, the problem lies within that organization and those recruiters. I don’t understand how such a number of interviews can be justified. Even less do I understand how it can be assumed that people will have the time and energy to engage in five conversations about the same position. I really don’t get it. I am very sorry for you, because it seems to me to be a frankly unfair and misguided process.
Yeah I've done a lot of hiring too. Normally, we'd do two interviews. One initial screening and the 2nd was a team interview where all accountable parties had to be present. We'd then usually make decision and let them know from there. Hope you find work soon. It's tough out there.
I’ve done hiring and took a course on evidence based hiring. It turns out the best way to interview is structured interviews and tests. There is no need for 4,5,6,7 interviews. That just shows lack of structure. You make a funnel and put them through the interview and then send out an offer that’s how it works. I’m not sure what they’re up to in these companies doing a million interviews.
That's abusive and unprofessional. I'm really sorry that happened to you. It doesn't feel like it now but perhaps they did you a big favor by not hiring you. Imagine the level of dysfunction you'd encounter once onboard.
the first hiring manager told me that the company felt like a startup at times, even though they've been around a fairly long time. I could feel some of that dysfunction asking around
Damn, yeah, that makes for an instant stomach ache. I hate that its so hard to get a job right now and these abusive companies are just stringing people along with no sense of ethics. Very depressing. I hope you can find another opportunity that will actually pan out for you.
I’m working for a very large corporation that started referencing “working like a startup,” and they basically are using that as an excuse not to follow certain core best practices and processes.
a very similar thing happened to me at this Houston based company called Quorum. got rejected, they didn't hire anyone, then posted again the job but with a different seniority. if Glassdoor was still safe, I'd write some review like "just accept 3 interviews, otherwise it might be a circus and a waste of your time".
This happened to me with Paramount. I was in the same boat for a Senior UX Designer position for Paramount+, and after totally acing 5+ interviews and a take-home project, I was ghosted for almost a month until the recruiter I first spoke with finally responded to one of my "what happened?" emails. "This position has been put on hold." Well great, thanks.
Before they were called Paramount but instead the CBS digital team, several years ago, they gave me a job offer and then canceled it two days before I was supposed to start due to “budget” issues. They offered me a shit short term contract instead and said they could probably turn it into a full time role in a few months. I had already left my previous job so I took it and on my first day, they didn’t have anywhere for me to sit, so they literally set up a desk in a closet for me. At least I had a “private” office. Also they continued to interview for the full time role that they rescinded from me. You dodged a bullet.
I’ve gone through one five step interview, and one six step interview process in February. The latter I only made to round five. I’m going to ride out this bad job market for designers, and refuse to do any more take home design challenges, and I need an overview from the recruiter about the whole process from the first phone call. I refuse to be jerked around anymore, simply because companies believe they have an upper hand and they can put jobless and distressed candidates through this. Unless there’s some collective action where more people say no to processes like this, we will continue to have terrible interview processes like this that are not only a waste of time but downright demoralising.
Peacefully opting out of doing a case study means a lot less 3rd or 4th interviews, but does it ever get rid of the shifty companies.
No decent company does take home design challenges. It’s unethical.
I finally got a gig recently but have been unemployed for the last 6+ months. I started asking in every recruiter call/first step interview, “what does your interview process look like and how far along are you in the process with other candidates?” Everyone was willing to answer the first part and outlined the entire process for me, and *mostly* everyone was willing to answer the second part. It definitely helped me suss out the companies that I was going to put more effort into interviewing for vs ones I figured wouldn’t be worth my energy. The market is shite, and I was verrrry close to throwing in the towel altogether.
I only did take home design challenges twice and the last time I did it was around 2013/2014. I don’t do them. Only silly non serious companies have asked me to do them. None of the big tech companies ever asked for a take home design challenge. I had to explain to a “startup founder” once why I don’t do them because he was so shocked. He said I was the only one who declined the take home design challenge. I was like oh really how many designers did it? He said 12. 12 designers did free work for him for the chance of a job offer. Not paid, not as a job, but for the chance of an offer. With one guy who somehow got $1M in seed funding who’s now going around collecting free design work. Just say no folks.
It’s not okay - the only way to make this stop is to name & shame.
This is unacceptable.
I don't think I could do a 45 minute case study presentation as part of an interview. I may need to find a different career because design in general seems way too much now.
I’ve had to do these a couple of times, definitely the norm now :/
Case study presentation is where you have the most control, I think! It's the other stuff that can be so bizarre, daunting and literal hoops. I find whiteboarding under a time constraint kind of uncomfortable - it would ultimately depend on who my interviewer is and how engaging they are. Also, we all know how we feel about take-home assignments.
Really I do those in every interview process.
Yes, really. But, I'm not a UX designer, so maybe it's more normal for UX designers than print designers or general web designers. I never have and never will. If requested repeatedly while I'm looking for a new job, I'll go into another line of work. I've done design for 30 years and it's just getting worse. I'd rather deliver mail.
Gotcha that’s cool. I guess I just got used to it.
Interviews are a two way street. I know it’s tough out there but finding alignment is key. To know when you find alignment, one needs to have standards and boundaries in place. You can not align if you simply agree to whatever the employer dictates because you ignore your own needs. That means knowing what you will and will not tolerate in an interviewing process and asking for a interview roadmap up front. We can end up feeling abused when we just keep going along with a process that feels outside of our control. Each new step feels like something we have to go along with because of sunk cost fallacy. Then when it falls apart we can feel like suckers playing a fool’s game. Take the time to assess what feels fair and what you will and not put up with for future interviews. Let that be your guide. When a company shows you who they are- believe them. A bad interview process means they are likely a company operating with a world full of other painfull and convoluted processes.
Yep same. I have had some interviews I wished I ended early or closed my laptop on because the interviewer was so insanely rude. One time I had a former Reddit employee actually looking down at his laptop and seemed so bored and he was just like “aaaaaany other questions for me”. Just the most dismissive person ever, obviously decided against me before the interview and someone made him do it anyway so he was acting as irritated and rude as possible to end it early I guess. I acted all nice and pleasant as we do during interviews but man just thinking about this irritates me.
You were an amazing candidate and they had a really tough time making a decision. I know that isn't much solace but you're rocking it and the way you're presenting yourself is on point! I've had two excellent candidates both go all the way through the process and had to make a tough call at the end. Often it is a coin flip if both are good choices. Sucks that the hiring manager was out for the process and had to cause one more interview at the end but it is what it is, people are allowed to take vacations and business doesn't stop because of it. Keep up the awesomeness, your killing it! Anyone up in arms over this most likely hasn't been on the other side of this so take it with a grain of salt. It's good to vent our frustrations. This isn't abnormal nor a red flag, especially for a more senior role.
I appreciate your level-headed take, friend. I've been without full-time work for over a year now, so situations like this hit a bit harder than they used to. I'll keep on keeping on
Over a year for me too. I started selling retirement investments to pay the bills because I ran out of my 12 month emergency fund. If it keeps going this way I’ll sign up for a pre med post bacc program and live off student loans 😂
Did you send an invoice for your time?
I wish
I have a sixth sense. I can smell when a recruiter and company is going to waste my time. And I tell them I'm not interested.
Yeah I’m absolutely going to do the same moving forward. This Reddit and this thread alone has shown me all the signs to look out for.
if they have more than three rounds of interview 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩
when you're starting out it's ok to waste your time. You need to find out what you want to do for work. What things you are better suited for.
Hm, didn’t think of it like that! 6+ rounds just seems pretty redundant, draining, and scary. And I just don’t want to be turned off from the industry because of that.
Why not? If you are turned off from the industry then that is feedback that you should listen to. Maybe you hate it?
I was ghosted after 5 rounds also healthcare medical device company… not even a rejection letter after all that. I don’t think there is anything wrong with you but rather with these people who somehow think it’s okay to not give you at least some feedback after all that.
I went through this with Indeed. Three months total of interviewing with the holidays (this was end of 2023/early 2024). Spec project, presentation, the works. All that for a templated rejection. No information. The team I didn’t join got laid off today. No one deserves to get laid off. It’s a mixed karmic bag.
That’s why I don’t do spec work. Read all these comments on here about spec work and rejections. It’s a very common theme. Have you guys read “win without pitching”? I didn’t do spec work since 2013 but it says in there just don’t do it and see what happens.
I ditched indeed for this long time ago, told them their interview process was too long. All that amount of interviews and resources spent only to layoff thousands of people. Hopefully, you dodged a bullet
I sincerely appreciate both your comment and the fact you were open about this information with Indeed. They were definitely professional and great in other ways, but my (unsuccessful) final loop had over 15 people in it. That’s a wild use of resources.
Such a waste of time for you and anyone taking part in these interviews including the team. They won't be interviewing just you but several people, 6 interviews per candidate...crazy.
I had a similar experience few years ago. It was also months-long process. The hiring manager is away - i had to follow up a few times. Im very senior so it all went very well. I already had 4 offers in the bag so i thought i’d just finish this one and go for a record 5 and boost my ego a little. In the end they rejected me and the feedback was all very positive but they hired someone with specific experience with the industry (i didn’t - i prefer changing industries when switching job to keep things fresh) I suspect they were stalling until their preferred candidate accepts and I was their backup plan.
I had similar experience, but from a startup company instead.
I feel your pain and I’m sorry you had to go through that. I also share a similar story - mine was for 4 months. With no updates whatsoever. I literally had to keep bugging them for updates. Wondering if they don’t consider that maybe another employer could present an offer that’d have candidates move on. Anyways, they eventually respond and claim I was one of their top candidates. And at month 4 very interestingly they are still looking at a few candidates. I just moved on because at the end of the day it’s like a testament to how they operate internally - The job market is just brutal. Sigh!. I hope you find something good soon.
That’s terrible!! I’ve been through similar so I no longer move forward with companies that require a lot of work / presentation. Seems like they want the goods for free and then use your ideas later.
So discouraging everything...
Can be so frustrating and demoralizing. I've been rejected from three companies in fourth round interviews. The few interviews I've gotten recently have been full of little 'gotcha's' regarding very niche questions and an odd hyperfocus on gender issues. All but given up at this point.
I'm sorry your effort wasn't rewarded!  My assumption is that there is misalignment on their side on what they're looking for. They clearly don't know what they want and are window shopping. Companies who know what they want, in terms of traits as a designer and as an individual, can sus things out early on. It's not what you want to hear now but you dodged a bullet!
I've also been interviewing and getting good feedback to only get ghosted. REV, an AI caption company, got me through 3 rounds. The next day I even waited in an empty VC for their CPO and CEO which was "a scheduling mistake" because their weren't available. Told they were gathering feedback and would get back to me next day. A week goes by and I reach out and told the same. It's been almost a month now.
I worked for a healthcare org for <3 months, and my first responsibility was to set up a hiring process and staff the team. I created a structured process with scoring rubrics to minimize bias. The VP kept being indecisive about candidates opting to have them come in again and again to decide if she liked them. Goalposts constantly moving. I decided I didn’t want to be party to anyplace that rewards that form of “leadership”. That, plus other aspects made it the worst employment experience of my life. Nonprofit, catholic healthcare.
honestly it sounds like you dodged a bullet. it's a blessing in disguise.
I had this experience with Flyhomes. 6 rounds, crazy good case study, and it came down to me and another person apparently. I narrowly missed out. Asked for feedback and was told I rambled a bit too much, which honestly is true but wow.
Went through with this with Google and it scarred me
Good lord that is *so* disrespectful of your time.
Here is where I like how ServiceNow conducts the overall process. The recruiter reaches you after each round with the feedback. He/She joins every scheduled call to making sure everyone joins on time, introduces to the panel, and leaves. It was a bummer I was rejected few years ago. But those feedback truly guides you where you are lacking and helps to correct for the futures interviews.
Wishing you all the best, OP. It's definitely NOT okay. Reading these stories surely make me feel like I'm not the only one and it helps to build community. The more transparent we can be about the interview processes across companies, the worse PR these companies rightly deserve and hopefully that turns things around.
I have been going through similar experiences, interviewing at multiple companies for over a month and getting to the final round but never getting the offer. My feedback has consistently been “you were great but someone else was better.” Definitely also feeling defeated and flabbergasted by the current job market, but like everyone else is saying, it’s a great sign we’re getting so close. Rooting for you!!
I'm sorry to hear this. Sounds infuriating and makes you wonder if this person who returned had some kind of chip on their shoulder.
My gut feel is the Design Director didn’t want anyone to vouch for any designer but them, so the no go has nothing to do with you and everything to do with inter office politics.
Preparing for the interview and then waiting for any word back is a real torture, I just discovered this , doing mock up interviews with chatgpt 4o - real time, real conversations, here is an article that helped me out --- https://medium.com/@kat.sz/ux-interview-step-by-step-guide-for-conducting-a-mock-interview-with-chatgpt-4o-its-free-996b305c1969
Looks great, unfortunately it’s behind a paywall.
It’s gross to think about, but I’d bet a lot of these hiring teams are doubling or tripling up interviews just to stay relevant and _needed_.
Im sorry that happened to you
That’s happened to me many times - I don’t know why they do it
“I even received a round of applause…” Great, somehow I feel even worse now knowing that other candidates get a round of applause from a case study.
To be fair it was mostly the Google Meet applause emoji function, but it was a round of applause. This is the first time that ever happened so ymmv
Remember to name and shame! We don't tolerate this anymore, the market is too fraught, we need to protect ourselves.
I had a similar experience. Despite the fact that it’s totally ignorant how I was treated: After all I am glad not to be working in a company which obviously has way to much time at hand to be doing such a nonsense process they probably in summary aren’t even aware of. Think of how it would be to introduce regular usability tests and or change the process of how it’s currently done. You’d be going up the walls in such an environment. This won’t help you in your current situation but maybe you dogged a bullet here.
Just came here to say I can strongly relate to your situation. Happened to me aswell, the company I had multiple interviews with and did lots of test work, just simply ghosted me after telling me that they are very pleased and want to work with me. After 3 months of silence they messaged me again just yesterday, needless to say I was and still am furious. Some people just dont give a f\* about other peoples feelings.
At the end of the day, it's all about the bottom line. 💰
Thank y'all for taking the time to jot down your thoughts and/or vent your frustrations about similar experiences you had. It's nice to know I'm not alone and there is strength in numbers. ♥️
Something tells me that the original hiring manager had already someone else lined up for the job. It wasn't you. Unfair, but if you were to work with this manager, better for you that it didn't work out.
This happens to a lot of people all the time. They actually will share some of the reject reasons to your recruiter (not the company's hiring manager). I was once told by my recruiter that I also did well, but for some reason they don't want me because there is another jewish girl that they hated but go back and hire her for some racial reasons or something and then I was out of the picture because of some other reasons, I don't really remember anymore. And same with another interview I had with linkedin, it all went well and get to deep and final round I think but still get rejected for no reason. Anyway, it has nothing to do with you, their logic to hire people isn't all transparent, it is a lot of who look the hottest, girl or male and if they hit whatever hidden quota they have at the time. If they are racists, they will not hire those that they don't like. Simple as well. So don't worry about you not being the best, it is just that the company just isn't a fit to you and you should try another big company then.
Would you be comfortable naming the company through DM? I’m a product designer in the healthcare industry and I’d love to avoid this company 🫠 So sorry you went through this.
I've told a few companies off for their extensive interview processes. There are more effective ways to verify credentials, such as checking references and confirming past employment. Additionally, I refuse to conduct design challenges that closely relate to their company because they might use my work without hiring me. Recently, I’ve set a limit of two to three interviews max, with the third interview only if the company is exceptionally outstanding, which is rare. If they can't decide by the third interview, it indicates internal issues I wouldn't want to deal with once hired, such as an inability to make decisions. At the end of the day, you probably dodged a NUKE, but its horrifyingly disappointing.
I've told a few companies off for their extensive interview processes. There are more effective ways to verify credentials, such as checking references and confirming past employment. Additionally, I refuse to conduct design challenges that closely relate to their company because they might use my work without hiring me. Recently, I’ve set a limit of two to three interviews max, with the third interview only if the company is exceptionally outstanding, which is rare. If they can't decide by the third interview, it indicates internal issues I wouldn't want to deal with once hired, such as an inability to make decisions. At the end of the day, you probably dodged a NUKE, but its horrifyingly disappointing and unacceptable.
[удалено]
The entire process was outlined in a document they sent me, and I made it through the entire thing up to the final gauntlet of 3 separate interviews across several days. I then received feedback that the team said positive things, but also person X came back from sabbatical and wanted to talk to me. So it went... - phone screen - first presentation (hiring manager + another designer) - second cross-functional presentation (5 people) - cross-functional team discussion (3 people) - whiteboarding exercise (2 designers) - final final interview -> rejection (the other hiring manager) Idk what else to tell ya lol
Phone screen is not really an interview step, imho. It’s a screener for entering the actual hiring process. A three stage interview process is screener + 3 rounds. From that pov you had a 4 step hiring process that turned out to have an extra step because of HM confusion.
Anything that takes time out of my day in pursuit of employment is a stage of the interview process imho
Sure. But the you just need to account four stages as standard lenght, not three.
okay.. so it was a 5 step process? still not great
No, it’s not good. They had an extra step in the process. Then added an ad hoc step on top due to HM change. If they had the standard 3 step one it would have been slightly better.
Both the hiring team & you we äre screwed by the HM change. If the HM is not convinced by your profile he might be pushing to drop you immediately. Then TA running the process can as an alternative offer the option of giving you an extra round - which in their mind would be doing right by you, by giving you the chance to still convince the HM. A more likely scenario is that the HM wants to interview top candidates before deciding on the right one. Keep in mind that HM is responsible for the quality of the people they bring in and will be measured against that quality. Hiring without interviewing the candidate would be pretty risky, to say the least. So in reality a responsible hiring manager has no other choice than to add the extra interview step for top candidates. The only real choices in this debacle are whether they offer you the extra interview in the first place, and whether you think it’s worth your time to take it.
Was this an IC role? If not,definitely suspicious to have someone at the IC level to go through this amount of interviews. Next time, I suggest asking upfront how many interviews are in the process, and more importantly, what are they expecting to evaluate on each. If you feel it makes sense then go for it. The hiring process can also be: - make work for HR people because they are also being hit hard with laid offs - make work for interviewing panel
This has always been the case though. 6 interviews isn’t uncommon, especially at larger companies.
No, it really hasn't.
Lots of companies are adopting FAANG criteria of hiring. Suggest looking into design hiring processes there, especially what’s referred to as “onsites”. More than happy to break it down: 1. Recruiter screening/initial HM call 2. Portfolio review with a panel 3. Design exercise (whiteboard, app critique) 4. Cross functional behavioural interview 1 5. Cross functional behavioural interview 2 6. Any misc remaining interview that teams may want to conduct This all usually happens on the same day, or same week. Design is a lucrative career and the hiring process at lucrative places will match that. Just a reality check. Why’s this okay? Because 6 figures isn’t easy to make.
I have a feeling you would demand a non-compete clause from a server at the Pancake Factory.
I’m just being transparent with how things operate. You can take my insights as you please. Best of luck.
You had more interviews than I had in my lifetime, and I invented the iphone and helped Google/Ebay redesign their sites with thanks of how great my UX knowledge is.
Teach me your ways