I applied in mid-July for a position in the New York, NY, office. Almost four weeks later, I had a brief phone interview with a person in the UK who I thought was the manager. Two weeks later, I had a phone interview with him and one of his colleagues. In the midst of this, he sent me samples of their publications and asked for my thoughts. Both interviews went well—so far, so good. The first person invited me to go in for a design test about two weeks after the second interview, on a day when he'd be in New York. When I met him on that day, he said that this was the first time that they'd done something like this and that I was their test case. That they had little idea of what they were doing was clear: he said the test should take an hour, but it took me over two. I'm an experienced designer and was working as fast as I could given the level of detail the test entailed. There's no way anyone who wanted to do a good job could have completed this in an hour. Also, the test was redundant: it asked for two article layouts in which many of the elements and tasks were repeated. One article spread would have sufficed, saving them and me time and effort. Soon after, he emailed me and asked me to go back the following week—it was now two months since I'd applied—to meet two other people in NY. I assumed that this was a formality, since I'd already been through the wringer. Oh, no. It was as if I'd never met with anyone; I felt as if I were starting from square one. It was during this interview that I found out that the manager of this position was not the person from the UK, but one of these two people. Why didn't the true manager in NY conduct the hiring process from the beginning? The question from this in-person interview that sticks out in my mind is "What is your favorite book?" How is this relevant to a graphic design job? I could not read books at all and still be a great designer. I've always considered this a bad sign at interviews. It tells me that the person thinks way too much of themselves and their opinions on things not relevant to the interview at hand. At the end of this interview, they told me that I wouldn't hear from them for over two weeks, because the manager in NY would be away on his honeymoon. I was flabbergasted. They couldn't have waited until after he returned to begin the entire process? Did they not understand how excruciating this would be? During the second week in October, the UK person sent me the rejection: "I'm afraid we are going to offer the designer role to another candidate and won't be proceeding further with your application. "It's probably of little consolation but we liked your design test and you made the final shortlist from around 200 candidates." He almost got it right: it is of no consolation whatsoever. It they're not going to hire me, their assessment of my skill is of no consequence to me. The test wasn't even a true design test, but rather a layout test—can you do this and that in InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop? It's the kind of thing any designer worth her salt could do in her sleep. I suppose it's a good thing that I didn't get this job. I couldn't have dealt with this type of bureaucracy, ineptitude, and lack of communication on a daily basis. And it's a purely print job, a virtual death sentence for a graphic designer these days. I wouldn't have had the chance to increase my digital design skills. Print magazines aren't viable anyway. This position will probably be eliminated within two years.