This was an extremely disorienting interview process. I applied online and got an employee referral in the beginning of June. 10 days later, got an email from a recruiter letting me know I was selected for a screening but there would be a delay. I finally was contacted on June 28th to schedule a screening but the soonest they could do it was another week out. My phone screen was warm, laid back, and I really connected with the recruiter. I was asked to send my availability for the interview with the hiring manager, which was scheduled for a week later. The role was transferred to a different recruiter after this, who never bothered calling to introduce herself. Emails from her were only to schedule calls and nothing else. Zero warmth, extremely hands off (which was the total opposite of the first recruiter). I met with the hiring manager and that went smoothly. I was told at the beginning of the hiring process that this would be 3 rounds total, so I was thrilled when I made it to the 3rd round and it was scheduled 2 days later. This is where everything fell apart for me as a candidate. Don’t get me wrong: the panel interviewers were warm, friendly, and engaging. That wasn’t the issue. The problems arise from the fact this specific role is brand new to LinkedIn. It was extremely clear from the recruiter, hiring manager, and panel that there weren’t specific planned for for day to day duties, full role scope, or who specifically I would be collaborating with in this role. They knew the end goal but that was about it. The panel asked me extremely bizarre questions. One asked about my experience with AI (not listed anywhere in the job requirements or by the recruiter in my phone screening), and the question itself was extremely unspecific. Did they mean in a technical writing context? Engineering? Did they mean ChatGPT? I didn’t know. Next, I was asked specific questions about what my current processes are and how I would build this role out. As a reminder, this role doesn’t exist and no one could give me a clear understanding of what the role was outside of the end objective and a very roundabout visual of what they think the role would entail. This made answering these questions virtually impossible because I had no grasp of what the role actually looks like in its entirety and neither did the panel members. I explained my processes in my current role, but they aren’t applicable to this role. There’s no way for me to explain how I will successfully build a new role out when nobody can give me any kind of framework. At the end of the panel interview, I inquired about next steps/when a final decision was being made. The panel members were puzzled and told me I had another round to go. I explained that the first recruiter I’d worked through told me it was 3 rounds in total. They said that y department recently restructured and a lot of the processes and procedures were in the air, hence why this role was also a little muddled in clarity. After the interview, I emailed the newly assigned recruiter and asked for clarification on how many rounds this process was. She ignored my email. I attempted calling her. She didn’t pick up or call me back. I waited a business day and followed up again. She finally got back to me near the end of the day and told me she was waiting on hearing from the hiring manager about next steps and that the process is only 3 interviews long in total/the panel was incorrect. That was on Friday afternoon. On Monday afternoon, I got a brief, boilerplate style email from the recruiter letting me know I wasn’t selected. I wrote back and asked for feedback from the panel because everything had moved so smoothly through the interview process in general in terms of speed once things were booked. I waited an hour and attempted to call her. Again, she screened it. She finally wrote back and simply said “thought you were too vague and didn’t explain getting from point A to point B. Thanks for applying.” This… was puzzling, heartbreaking, and infuriating. I have been trying to get into LinkedIn for years and I absolutely qualified for this. I build out a technical writing department from scratch in my current role. I know how to do it. I’m a professional writer. I know how to cross collaborate to do these things. It was impossible to be any more specific in my responses given the “up in the air, we don’t really know” nature of all my interviewers regarding what this role actually was. This entire process was two full months of my life from start to finish, only to get a completely cold, impersonal drive-by rejection email from a secondary recruiter that never bothered to give me the time of day. 8 weeks. I deserved a phone call. From a candidate’s perspective, I can’t tell you how discouraging the bad communication from LinkedIn was from last Thursday to Monday afternoon. They don’t make mouthwash strong enough to get this bad taste out of my mouth.
