I applied in early April and a week or two later I received an email inviting me to an interview. I sent over my availability and a few days later I received an email from the recruiter informing me that they were fully booked the rest of the week and would be on annual leave the following week so, they were no longer able to have a screening call with me. The recruiter ask if I would be happy to have an screening call after the 21st April which was after Easter and I agreed.
True to their word the recruiter and I had our screening call where I provided an overview of my work history to date along with being able to ask questions at the end.
After the call the recruiter said they were happy to put me forward for a first stage interview with they hiring manager as they had seen my cv and felt I would be a good candidate for the role. I agreed to the first stage interview and a couple of days later.
The interview was on microsoft teams and I felt it went as I was able to talk through my relevant experience as well as gain a better understanding regarding the company from the hiring manager.
At the end of the interview, the hiring manager said they would pass on feedback to the recruiter who would be in touch with next steps for the final stage interview if I were successful and this would also involve a task.
The day after my first stage interview, towards the end of the day I received an email from the recruiter informing me that the hiring manager was impressed and would like to take me to the second interview which was the final stage.
As the email came in around 6ish in the evening I was shocked to see detailed and involved the task would be. They asked for the task to be completed before my scheduled interview which was initially arranged for the wednesday after the bank holiday weekend in May.
This gave me very little time to complete the task and so I asked for a little more time which they agreed to.
The tasked involved reading a blog on their website then providing pros and cons related to it.
Producing a 600-800 word blog on their csr, dei and sustainability policies along with creating a content calendar for the week.
The whole task took me almost a week to complete and not the initial 2 days which the hiring manager roughly said it would.
I sent my completed task over the day before my interview as requested. On the day of the interview 6th May I explained my thought process and also my suggestions to the hiring manager as I presented my task to him.
I couldn't gage on how my task was coming across to the hiring manager but I hoped I had answered the task correctly.
After the interview the hiring manager told me they had 4 more others to see and would making a decision before friday 9th as that was an important business day for the company.
I was told I would hear by Thursday 8th May as an offer would be made by then. Thursday and Friday came and went, I heard nothing both days which was very disappointing given all the time I took to prepare for each interview and for the time I took to complete the heavily invovled task.
I am not sure I will be applying to this company in the future.