I was referred by the Hiring Manager to recruitment after I messaged him regarding a LinkedIn post he made about the position. He had a recruiter reach out and she scheduled a phone screen. She did not call me at the scheduled time and I emailed her and asked if there was an issue and she rescheduled. She called me and after a quick discussion of my background-fully qualified-she said she was happy to pass me on to the next stage, which would be the final stage. I truly thought I had this in the bag bc of the HM referral, the need to hire for a specific background and time zone (which I met/had both) and the need to fill multiple seats bc of the new HR product launch. I was perfectly qualified, according to all of my next FOUR interviewers. The HM told me during the interview that we had perfect alignment. All told, I probably spent 10 hours prepping or meeting with the interviewers. The HM ghosted me after I sent a thank you email and I got an email rejection after prompting him once more for an update. Looking back I can see that the way the interviews were held shows distrust in the organization. I also feel there was a potential age bias present. There were people interviewing me that had only been working there for 4 months. That’s at least…interesting. They read from a script and one of my interviewers was in a coffee shop and I could barely hear him the whole time. At first I was upset about not getting an offer, but looking back and reading more here made me realize that I probably dodged a bullet bc hindsight being 20/20, the process was giving disorganized startup culture-which, for as long as they have been in business, should NOT be the case. I will say that everyone in the process was “nice” to me, but it leaves you feeling deceived when some of the things they said indicated that I would be hired and then you get an email instead of another “nice” conversation with a recruiter or the HM. I’d recommend that the executives understand that clear is kind and utilize some different approaches to show that they value people’s time and their own values that they ask you to talk about in each interview. I don’t appreciate ego and that was mentioned multiple times by the interviewers as well-that at Gusto, everyone leaves their ego at the door and embraces empathy. Apparently, that doesn’t hold completely true in the hiring process or at least it didn’t for me.

Applied in September 2025 to an HR Consultant role. The role interested me as it presented a rare opportunity to combine both my HR and consulting experience and getting the chance to work again supporting small businesses was exciting to me. I didn’t hear back until one of the people leaders on the Customer Experience team reached out to me 5 months later to set up a general interest meeting. The initial conversation was positive and learning more about both the growth of the company and the diverse HR work that this role would offer validated my interest. After that I was asked to participate in a panel interview which lasted a little over 2 hours. I was particularly impressed to see a member from the IT team on the panel who was asked to facilitate my value alignment interview. To me that illustrated that the company saw the responsibility of upholding the company’s core values and culture as the responsibility of everyone, not just HR. Every person I met was well spoken, intelligent and kind. I left the interview feeling energized. I was interviewed on a Friday and was told I would get more information on next steps the following week. TA never reached out that week. On Monday I reached out to get a status update and was told I had not been chosen to move forward in the interview process. I also received a lovely email from the people leader who had initially reached out to me about the role letting me know this decision was not a matter of fit but more of timing as I understood they were hiring in phases. At that point I took the outcome as a positive and made a note to reach back out in a few months to see if any new opportunities had opened up. Then that same week on a Friday, I received a voice message from that same people leader telling me that he had advocated for me and had managed to open a req just for me. He then asked me to reach out to TA to get details on the offer. I was elated and flattered that I had made such an impactful impression and was excited about getting to the offer stage. TA shared with me the benefits package but no formal offer, they said they would have it by Monday at the latest. Monday came and went and nothing. Then when I reached out Tuesday morning I learned that the role had been moved under another hiring manager and I was asked to meet with them. The TA rep framed the conversation as a chat, not a formal interview. However, upon starting the call with the new hiring manager it became obvious that she had not received any feedback about my candidacy and that this was most definitely not a formality. I confidently answered every question, and illustrated my breadth of experience. At the end they told me that I would be hearing from TA by next week at the latest. The interview was on a Thursday. By Wednesday I had not heard anything from TA so I decided to call the people leader who had initially extended the offer to me and asked him for a status update. He seemed surprised by my call and then informed me that the position had been put on hold and asked if I had heard from Anthony. I had not spoken to Anthony at any point in the interview process. While roles go on hold all the time, that was not what disappointed me about this experience. It was the fact that a senior leader had opened a req without considering whether it was or was not in budget. The fact that this role was put on hold shows that this role was not in budget in the first place. To me this is HR 101 and made me question both the integrity and strategic thinking of this individual. Not to mention that when I notified TA of this experience and their response made it seem like they had not been made aware of this outcome illustrated a complete lack of organization. The whole experience left a poor taste in my mouth. I hope through sharing my candidate experience with TA will provide both some lessons learned and hopefully a better candidate experience in the future.