Really odd experience with the recruiters. The first recruiter that interviewed me was a very pleasant lady who I found out left her position. When I made it to the second round of interviews, I had emailed the new recruiter three times about questions, status updates, and he never replied; quite odd given this is the Times. I had never been ignored like that in all my job applications, from both big and small companies. I really enjoyed my experience talking directly to the hiring manager though.

The interview process started great. A lovely screening and good communication from the recruiter. The subsequent interviews happened in a timely manner and went well. But once we got to the writing test, all communication stopped. I wasn't given a timeline to expect feedback, waited a couple weeks before following up. Received an update that they're still in the process of gathering feedback and would get back to me within the week. I didn't hear anything back for another month. I understood they were ghosting me, but tried one final follow up to check the status of the role. No response from the recruiter, but quickly received a canned no-reply email stating I'm no longer a candidate. And the subject line said "phone screening", so i'll never be sure the recruiter was even aware I made it far in the interview process and was awaiting feedback on a writing sample. Either way, never heard a word from them again. I understand how busy talent teams are, but I wish it weren't normalized to ghost candidates that far in the interview process. Especially as someone who was very excited about the role.