The interview process was fine, the technical interview was normal—conducted in that traditional, somewhat cold & rigid fashion that makes you stumble over your words and freeze up. I admittedly didn’t do great and usually struggle when the interview feels like a live exam, so I wasn’t entirely surprised I didn’t get a third interview. That’s not necessarily what has left a bad taste in my mouth, although I think that’s an awful way to get to know someone’s skillset. What rubbed me the wrong way was the recruiter. Initially, he was almost over the top friendly and super chatty; he told me about his grandma and how she’s always trying to get him to move back home… we joked that we were old friends by the end of the initial interview. He gave me a lot of positive feedback and we emailed back and forth and spoke on the phone a couple more times trying to schedule the second interview. Point being, it was a personable, seemingly genuine human interaction. A few days later I emailed the recruiter to follow up, he then immediately sent me a generic rejection email. And when I say generic, I mean it was so frigid it made the automatic rejections you get after firing off an “easy apply” resume on LinkedIn seem like a love note. Didn’t refer to me by name, instead used the term “candidate” and he never signed his name after the “kind regards,” that the email had pre-written. It just felt icky & somewhat disrespectful. There is little dignity in job hunting, especially when the market is this brutal… it’s processes like this that make it that much more disheartening.

Phone screening followed by in-office 2 hour interview. Short general computer skills test. Talked with one manager and two engineers + HR person. Mostly high-level general questions. More of a conversation, really. Very friendly and sympathetic interviewers.