TERRIBLE - SHOCKINGLY BAD!
4 STAGES:
1 - Initial coffee with HR & potential line manager.
2 - Subsequent briefing for a role play and phone call with line manager 'in role play' mode (I had to pretend I worked for them and that they were an external client)
3 - Roll Play style presentation in person to 3 senior individuals - 45 mins, then 45 mins for further Q&A
4- After 4 hours of interviews, plus time required for me to prepare presentations, I NEVER heard from them. They didn't even say they weren't going to take me forward, just went silent.
I'm 10 years into my career so while I can understand not coming back to graduate candidates (kind of) I was very surprised by their lack of etiquette towards more experienced professionals.
Problems
1 - the briefing wasn't in line with what the interviewers were expecting, even though I'd discussed it with one of them on a call 2 days prior. This meant that in person they were ill prepared and disappointed by the limited scope of my presentation. Totally embarrassing for me!
2- Was asked to come into present 1 week in advance (quick but fine) however two days before it turned out they were expecting a formal presentation with PPT deck. This wasn't in the brief that HR had given me. I sought out the ppt template from them and got one in Spanish with formatting oddities that took ages to correct and were still commented on negatively during the interview
3- The interviewers were trying to be nice but one of them was really rude. He sat opposite me writing a list of my 'strengths' and 'weaknesses' (mostly the latter) in big writing that I could read throughout the interview. It was off putting - not sure if he was doing this on purpose to put me off.
Clearly I was the wrong person for the role, and while they tried to be nice about it the lack of consistency between the briefing and expectations of the interviewers was missing causing major embarassment for me. Add to that the weird in-room behaviour of one of them, and the fact that no one from HR ever followed up (despite promising to, and me emailing them)... definitely the least professional and most unpleasant interview experience of my career.
This was a massive waste of time, deeply miserable and the irony of this being at a company who profess to be professional isn't lost on me...!