It was a great hiring manager interview until the final 5 minutes and it went like this -
Them: D'you have any questions for me?
Me: What are somethings one should be mentally prepared for while taking up this role?
Them: Not challenges but how comfortable are you with travelling?
Me: Within the city?
Them: No, all over the country, to meet with our customers because that's how the competition as well operates. It's also the only way to hit and exceed your numbers
Me: I'm surprised because this wasn't mentioned before. I was told it's a remote role.
Them: Yes, it is remote. You don't have to come into the office
Me: Okay, I understand (No, I don't, because that's not called remote). It's not mentioned in the JD, just a heads-up.
Them: Yeah, in India it's not mandatory to mention it in the job posting
Me: (Whoa!!) Sure, but as a candidate I would have liked to know all the details beforehand
Them: Yeah that's why I'm telling you now.
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Okay, so, NO. That's not how it works. I would not even have applied to the role had travel been mentioned in the JD because I'm looking for a job and not just an interview experience.
1. I've spent hours, like many hours, preparing for this interview, learning about the company, its products, watching the demos on YT, UpGuard Summits, comparing competition on G2, recent data breaches, etc., not because I had too much time in hand, but because I really wanted to get this role by acing the interview.
2. You had multiple chances to reveal this piece of information - in the JD, on the recruiter call, the 3 times the hiring manager call was rescheduled exactly 2 minutes before the call started, and when we did finally meet, this could have been mentioned at the start of the interview.
I had to politely say no on the call itself stating it's not what I'm looking for at the moment. Post that I received the recruiter's templated email - "After careful consideration, we have decided to proceed with other candidates. " Great! Please do them and yourselves a favour and let them know what the job actually entails. Us candidates would rather be using our time to edit resumes and apply to other "more transparent" employers.
Thanks!