Acumen tries to cut corners by getting rid of the initial HR phone screen. The process for me was 1) fill out an abnormally long application, with multiple short answer questions; 2) submit writing samples; and 3) have a phone call with three members of the team. The phone call was wildly unpleasant. The interviewers were terse (one was openly hostile), asking a series of predetermined questions with little reaction to my answers. It was also clear they had not read my writing samples beforehand. Without the HR call, I felt completely unprepared, with a shaky understanding of the actual day-to-day of the job (the job description was typically vague) or the salary. I left the phone interview unsure if I even wanted to continue with next steps (an in-person interview/writing test). The feeling must have been mutual because I received a standard email rejection a few days later.

They compensated me for my travel, which was generous and polite. I had to take an exam about grammar and research. Then I remained in one room all day while different department members spent 30 minutes each asking me the same exact typical interview questions all day, one at a time. It was exhausting and redundant. One interviewer even said out loud that he didn't understand why he was interviewing me, which was awkward. I think the weirdest part was that my interview and test with them was scheduled from 10am-3pm. Around I think 12:30 or 1pm, the HR rep told me I wasn't going to get a lunch break. She told me I could remain in the interview room by myself and either have a protein bar OR a bag of chips. I thought it was ridiculous. I would have liked to have been informed that I was responsible for my own lunch ahead of time so I could've pack a sandwich. I ended up walking to the cafe on the first floor and buying myself a proper lunch, but HR was bizarre about it. She told me several times to make sure I wasn't late for the next interview and then awkwardly told me that if I had been traveling from further away, an employee would've taken me out to lunch, but since I was close by, they wouldn't pay for my lunch. It was just....bizarre and borderline rude. No matter where you travel from to attend an interview with a company, lunch is lunch. Everyone deserves to eat more than a bag of chips for lunch. And I felt it was a bit dishonest and just unprofessional that the company didn't tell me ahead of time that I had to figure out my own lunch. I wanted the job, but after the interview I realized the company wasn't very organized and I didn't understand the logic behind the interview. The whole thing was a red flag.