Online job application, online personality and IQ assessment, phone screen with HR recruiter, interview with manager, round of short interviews with team members. As the first step after submitting the online job application, I received an email from an unmonitored email address asking me to complete a 30-minute online personality and IQ assessment. I was given no choice but to complete the assessment if I wanted to continue in the process. No contact information was provided for anyone at the company, so if I wanted to opt out, if I had needed a special accommodation, or if I had some other issue, there was no recourse. I didn’t want to complete it, but I did, because I thought I would be disqualified if I didn’t, and I knew I could pass the test. Only after passing the assessment did I have the opportunity to speak with HR. I asked the HR recruiter to send me the results of the assessment. They never did. So I have no idea how my personality was evaluated, or what kind of report the vendor sent to the HR department supposedly describing my personality. I consider it unethical for a company to require candidates to complete an automated personality assessment like this in order to qualify to be interviewed, and more so to do this with a lack of transparency, with no visibility into how the assessment is being used, and no access to the results of the assessment in exchange for giving 30 minutes of my time to an application process that might not even continue. The rest of the interview process was good, albeit rushed. I went through two interview stages, meeting with the hiring manager and a handful of team members. The interviews were conducted well, everyone was friendly and made me feel comfortable, and I was impressed by the skill and intelligence of the people I met with. The experience overall was positive, but I’m emphasizing my complaints about the personality assessment because the company need to change the process—it’s unethical and potentially unfair to diverse candidates who are otherwise qualified for the position.

Talked to recruiter. Ghosted. Which is fine, but the recruiter went out of their way to tell me they always give feedback no matter what and how it is a big thing for them. This, it turns out, was a lie.