The initial interview the prospective line manager went great, really good rapport, great chemistry and it felt considered and structured, which is not something that is a given when speaking to new businesses that are scaling at the pace of Deel. I was asked to complete a task which included recommendations for their social platform, some ideas for campaign and content activations which could easily be turned into live strategic approaches and ideas, something that is of pretty high value for a business that has not figured out and set-up its content and social strategy. The real problem started when I had to speak to the co-founder who severely lacked interviewing skills and was unable to respond to my questions regarding the strategic ambition of the business and the role I am applying for nor the answers I gave her to her questions. Note here, that by this time, the expectation from the previous line manger interview have been met and exceeded. I left the interview feeling completely thrown by the lack of understanding of the role by the co-founder and the sombre responses I got to my questions. Turns out, I was turned down, despite my ability to do and exceed the job because I did not have an exact match for their background expectations, namely having worked in a scale-up, something that was never set-up in the Job-spec, nor was it mentioned as a key requirement in this process.