The interview process started out with a phone screen done by the recruiter. That went very well and the recruiter was very friendly. After that, I was scheduled for a video interview with the hiring manager. She was very friendly as well and said she had been looking forward to speaking with me. We discussed the position and her expectations for someone coming into it.
After the interview, I sent her a thank you note and said that the position was what I was looking for. She responded and said she enjoyed speaking with me and that I seemed like a good fit for the position. Also, she told me that she had advised the recruiter to schedule the next round of interviews.
After a little over week, the recruiter scheduled my panel interviews with two members of the team. One was with the Video Collaboration Events Promotions Manager and the other was with the Inside Sales Manager. The Promotions Manager was the first one to interview me. This is where the process goes downhill drastically!
When I signed into the interview with her, she seemed as if she didn't want to be there. I started out by introducing myself and going over my experience, but she just didn't seemed interested at all. Even while I was speaking, she was looking and waving at co-workers who were walking by her window. After I was done speaking, she proceed to tell me she was hired without any marketing experience. The reason she was brought on was because she knew the previous marketing manager. One startling thing she said is that she still doesn't know specific marketing areas, such as KPI's, which are a big part of experiential marketing.
When the interview ended with her, it seemed okay and I was scheduled to speak with the Inside Sales Manager the next day. Well the next morning, I get a call from the recruiter. He tells me that the hiring manager sent him a message and stated "In the interest of everyone's time" it would be best to cancel my interview with him. The recruiter said he wasn't given any other feedback as to why they went in another direction.
After I got off the phone with him, I proceeded to message the hiring manager to see if she could provide any feedback. She did and stated "Given the state of our business, if there's anything I can do to shorten the ramp-up time, I need to do it." That's in reference to saying that they supposedly had "other" candidates and wouldn't have to provide much training. In my opinion, that doesn't make any sense seeing that they hired a woman who doesn't have any experience and still doesn't know simple marketing areas!
What happened is that the Promotions Manager provided her with negative feedback after judging me during the interview. She stated that I had a lot of experience, so maybe she was scared I could eventually take her job. I think this was handled in such a bad way. The hiring manager built me up into thinking that she wanted me for the role and then didn't even let me do the second panel interview because I wasn't worth the other managers time. After this experience, I would highly advise against applying to work with this specific team!