SUMMARY - In my opinion, the process was less than professional and rather shambolic. They invite me for an interview, disappear for more than 2 months, then call me out of the blue and verbally make an exploding job offer (requiring that I join within a week or so) WHILE I am still employed elsewhere. Then they ghost me when I take some time to decide. _________________________________________________ DETAILS - The COO finds my profile in a jobs portal and gets in touch with me. Invites me (or rather insists) that I drop by their office the following day for an interview. I take half a day off from my work and go there. Interview is alright, and surprisingly rather easy. Everyone I meet seems nice and well-spoken. I actually come out with a positive impression of the company as a whole. Two weeks later, the COO calls and says as part of the next round, I need to perform a task to prove my skills. I tell him to send it over. Nothing is sent and nothing happens for another 3 weeks. The COO calls me again, says they have been busy with other things and so had to drop everything for a while. I empathise with him. He agrees to send the task/test posthaste. Again, nothing happens. Fast forward a month and a half. The COO calls me a 4th time. This time, the call was bizarre. He pretends as if the 2+ month delay never happened, and that my interview happened only yesterday. He seems to have forgotten the most basic details which we discussed during the interview (my notice period, current compensation etc.). Strangely, he even asks me something to the effect of, “We haven’t heard from you this whole time. What happened?”. I cannot believe what I was hearing. THEY were supposed to proceed with the process. In hindsight, to me this came across as either them being supremely disorganised or a crude attempt to avoid having to explain the delay. The whole pretense of normality somehow made me feel that my intelligence was being insulted. He then drops the bomb - (to paraphrase) “We need you to join urgently. The position we are offering is only open for a week or so. We need you ASAP.” No apology about keeping me in the dark, and no acknowledgement of the delay until I point it out to him. Remember - They disappeared for nearly 3 months during the interview process, and NOW the burden is on me to do whatever it takes to grab this "opportunity" before they close the door on me in a week's time. Nobody likes being forced to make a decision under such circumstances. I take a few days to decide the best course of action, as I was waiting for offers from other companies at the time. In the end, I decide to keep Stride in my consideration EVEN AFTER the events mentioned above. I try to connect with them to proceed and work something out, but lo and behold, I get no response. I am ghosted for taking a few days to think over a major life decision. Never before have I been insulted by a company in this manner. In my mind, this likely shows the company's culture as a whole. It is hard to say anything positive after being treated this way.