Given an employee referral, I was contacted by a recruiter through email to set up a brief phone interview/screen. A day later I connected with an alternate recruiter (he was 20+ mins late to call and seemed disinterested for the entirety of the 5-8 mins we spoke) by phone. Thereafter, I was called in for an interview at the WaPo headquarters in DC with the executive I would be supporting. The conversation started with my sharing of my background and professional experience (connecting the dots how both related to the job duties)—and progressed towards a series of behavioral questions. The executive was passionate, curious and pleasant. The interview didn’t feel stellar but I walked out feeling good regardless. More than being disappointed that I was not selected to move unto the next stage of the hiring process (since in all honesty the cold and disengaging interactions with the WaPo recruiters up to that point had turned me off of the organization), I was saddened that no one had the decency to be in touch letting me know that an alternate candidate had been selected. After making time to meet onsite with their team, it would’ve been common courtesy to send an email. Disappointed since I had previously heard that the culture at WaPo had exceedingly deteriorated after being acquired by Amazon—but was I hoping that my experience would prove different. Disheartening but glad I didn’t end up there since the hiring process is often reflective of company culture.

Interview process took a week. Hired right away as a contractor and became full time upon completion of contract. The actual interview was long and lengthy. They asked a lot of behavioral questions and background stories. Probably the longest interview to date.