About a week after applying for the role, I received an invitation to an initial phone interview which lasted about 20-25 minutes. I received the invitation over the weekend asking for a Monday phone interview. It seemed to go very well, and the questions were very straight-forward.
About a week later I received another invitation, this time for a face-to-face interview. The invitation was for the following day, which I found a bit strange. In my opinion, that amount of time is insufficient and does not give the candidates much notice to prepare (less than 24 hours).
When I arrived, the office building was locked and there was no one there to greet me. I tried ringing reception...no answer. I had to call the building manager to ask if someone could let me in as my presence seemed to go unnoticed to anyone currently in the building (or anyone who was supposed to be interviewing me). It was raining this whole time as well.
When I was finally allowed inside, I waited a few minutes for the two individuals who would be interviewing me. The first interviewer came across as very professional and seemed interested in my story. I wish I could say the same for the second, however I have never felt so uninteresting in my life. Basically for the entire interview, he was staring outside the window, did not make eye contact with me, and did not seem to really care about any of the questions I was answering. This was very unfortunate, as I am naturally a confident person, but this made me feel very uneasy and quite nervous.
The feedback I received a few days later was that I was a great candidate who came across as very professional, friendly and qualified, but also (not coincidentally) a bit nervous. The second interviewer's body language, attitude and complete lack of interest in me or anything I had to say really made me feel uneasy. I am not sure if that had to do with me being a woman or just being plain boring to him, but I am a qualified HR professional who is very comfortable conversing about my work experience and education. This unfortunately seemed to make no difference to him as he was attentive to whatever was passing the window at the time.
As much as I appreciate the first interviewer's effort during the interview, I gave him some feedback over the phone and never received an explanation or an apology. I have never had an interview like this before in my life, and I hope to never have one similar to it again.
