It was an insanely intense process and a horrible experience. I had a phone screening first (standard), then I met with one other person – in this interview, I had to create a campaign concepts and a brief for a faux company. This was pretty involved and the ask demanded several hours of work prior to the interview. Fine, fair. Interview went great. I got a lot of praise. Interviewer said he was very happy with what he saw. I felt pretty confident. The next interview is where things got weird (and dark). They scheduled a "culture" interview to learn more about me. I was thinking it would be questions like "what are your hobbies?" or "what shows are you watching?" If only. It started out innocently enough – there were tough, but expected questions like "what's one thing about yourself you don't want us to know?" But as the interview progressed, it got weirder and weirder. There was a question about why I am the way that I am (I had stated I was driven). I said I'd overcome some things in my life that made me want to excel. They poked and prodded until I basically had to elaborate on my personal tragedies and traumas. Next thing I know, I'm explaining my abusive childhood and a high school friend committing suicide to two strangers on a professional call! I was so stunned, visibly upset and on the verge of tears. But I felt like if I wasn't honest, it would impact my chances at a job. Then, once I shared, I felt like I was being penalized for having trauma at all. Ironically, this interview was traumatic. It was a huge red flag, but I tried to justify it. I thought maybe this is why they have such a high retention rate. But soon after, I was turned down for the job without so much as a "thank you." The whole process made me feel violated and ashamed. But Jump 450 should be ashamed. They need to do better. Interviewers are in a position of power and they took advantage of that.

After the recruiter screening they gave an assessment. The assessment interview was a little odd - interviewers said they were eager to get into the (2 slide) assessment since we only had an hour, so they didn't ask questions ahead of time. After the assessment, they asked to go over my portfolio, then interrupted me as I was presenting it and said "well, we have your portfolio, so we'll turn it to you for questions." Both my questions were met with "Well as we said," so not super welcoming. It seems like after they looked at my portfolio they decided they didn't want to move forward with me and wanted to end the interview. Wish they had determined that before giving me the assessment. They use Teams anyway so really not my loss that they didn't move forward lol.