Went from great to terrible Started with a screen call that went well, the Recruiter was engaged and responsive and encouraging, they were multi-tasking but I understood and really didn't mind. Then I met with the Dept Director - who's absolutely fantastic. Talked about experience, what my impressions of the site I'd be working on is like, some general & specific questions working style questions and getting to know each other. A really robust interview, felt very attentive, got fantastic encouraging feedback. Rapid response I was moving on! Onto the next round meeting with two managers on Day 1, then another day meeting with 3 dept heads and then later on my potential partner. Given the rapid responsive pace and constant good conversations I thought this was going great. But it started to fall apart. Original Recruiter was OOO - and the substitute incorrectly told all the people I was meeting with I had a portfolio review scheduled - where they waited for me, and then emailed me to say I missed it. After a correction - they realized and apologized it was their error as they had never scheduled anything with me - but it was very uncomfortable to explain to interviewers in a light way "I'm not a flake - your company (who I very much wish to work for) messed up. But I digress, still had really good interviews beyond that. Here's where the ghosting and I'm pretty sure just outright lies started. Final round is doing the interview that I was actually never scheduled for initially. They ask me to pick between some upcoming times, later asking me to hold on and they'll reach out to me tomorrow with details. The original recruiter is on their way back from OOO and needs to hash out details with the Director. Ok, sure! 3 days later I just do a follow up because I know things happen. Nothing. Weekend goes by, original recruiter comes back, so I send an email to them. (Also, the job was reposted, so I just ask if there's a yay or nay) Whole week goes by. I give a call. The original Recruiter is sooo sorry, they were OOO then catching up and they "saw [my] email but didn't know what to say, so they just didn't say anything" (?!?!) and the ENTIRE team was allegedly on Spring Break that week [ I glossed over this initially in the nice excuses but upon reflection every working professional was like "there's no way".. this isn't college and it's Travel company - wouldn't Spring Break be busy?" It could be true ...but I doubt it; if it is.. why wouldn't you just email back "hey the team's OOO, it'll be X days approx" Nevertheless, I was assured the meeting with the director for the criteria of the last review was happening tomorrow and I would hear from them right after that. It's been 3 weeks since then and my follow up has been ignored. So a lot of tears and frustration and anger I'm moving on. Never thought they'd be the material-worthy for one of those LinkedIn Ghosting stories but here we are. And I'm sure the generic response to this (if they do) will be "working on improving our efficiencies, so sorry. " And I'm still slugging it out after so much effort. Really heartbroken over this experience and really really really tired after all the prep. These are people's livelihoods. You get us this far, at least have the decency to say something changed.

There is a senior UX designer review from May that is similar to my own. Long story short, I got ghosted after my final panel interview with zero response from the recruiter. It’s been almost 2 months. I went pretty quickly through six total rounds of interviews. Halfway through the process, I did a portfolio review with 8 invited attendees from the team (which is overkill in my opinion). Then my final round was a panel interview - three interviews in one day with a designer, managers, and department heads. Everyone was quite great. They had thought provoking questions for me, as well as great responses to my questions. I got along well and could see myself working with them on fun yet challenging projects. I would work with any of them in a heartbeat. I saw the job was then reposted shortly after; same thing that the other reviewer saw happen. I’ve reached out to the recruiter a few times; no reply. I gave up on the idea that I’ll hear back. This is disrespectful and reflects poorly on the org, especially as it involves people's livelihoods during a really poor job market. What’s frustrating is knowing they need to fill this designer role due to the amount of work they have, yet they can’t commit to an applicant. I sincerely wish you guys the best finding a designer to fill this role. As of writing my review, this job has been posted a total of four times.