I had an interview with the legal department last week, it felt more like a humiliation ritual than an interview.
To begin with, I got to reception and said to the security man manning reception that I had an interview with legal and gave the interviewers name. He demanded to see my phone in my hand (didn’t give a reason why). I said no and said I had no service. He said nothing and pointed to a WiFi sign. I again said no to giving him my phone. He then said the legal team was large and he needed names to know who to contact. I again said the name of the person I was interviewing with. He then contacted them and then told me to sit down.
I sat on the sofas and waited, one of the interviewers arrived and asked reception for me. The reception man decided to scream/ shout out my name, so that everyone in the lobby was then staring. The security guard and his colleague then decided to burst out laughing when I walked past with the interviewer.
I was then sat by one interviewer at a table and given a task to answer some questions, the interviewer didn’t provide the print outs of legislation the questions were on and just said everyone has a phone, you can google the legislation on your phone.
After the 30 minutes for the task, the other interviewer came and got me and took me to a meeting room. They didn’t bother to tell me anything about the role or the team etc. and I was asked a few set questions. The interviewers repeatedly said throughout the interview condescendingly, “these are really easy questions/ these are really straight forward questions” rudely in response to the answers I gave. About 55 minutes in, she asked me condescendingly if I was a solicitor, despite having my cv, inviting me to interview and being in an 55 minutes into an interview for a solicitor position. Plus a bunch of other rude remarks throughout.
I asked what the training would be for new starters, and was told they don’t do training and that employees should look for outside courses themselves. The one interviewer then looked at her watch, said the interview had gone 5 minutes over and just got up and left the room before finishing my interview to get another candidate. The other interviewer remained, the interview ended and she didn’t bother to show me out. When I looked confused, she then asked if I knew which way I was going to get out, I said no. She told me to down the stairs and turn one way, she did not bother to escort me to the door.
I got to the exit and then another security guard started raising his voice at me, asking me how I got there unescorted, telling me off for being unescorted and that it was against there rules to be unescorted as a visitor. Despite the interviewer not bothering to actually escort me out.