I was contacted by an outside recruiter for the role. The first interview was with an HR representative over the phone and the second was a phone interview with the hiring manager. The hiring manager was the best part-- he's incredibly smart and articulate, and asked great questions that gave me an idea of the company culture as well as the duties of the job. The recruiter kept me up to speed with what the company was looking for, said I was a great fit and would be coming in for a panel interview. Was brought in for a panel interview with 6 individuals that went for over four hours. Almost every subject matter expert who interviewed had these expectations that the technical writer would be an expert themselves in each specialized area (production, software development, regulatory affairs, etc) yet, when asked what it was specifically the technical writer for the role would be doing with the specialized teams, most of them were vague and didn't seem to understand what it is the technical writer would be doing or need to succeed in the position outside of vague qualities like "good organizational skills". It was as though they wanted the individual to make the duties of the role up themselves and each SME was looking to see if this person could create a plan of action on the spot with no background or specifics as to what areas need the help of this role. For a third interview that lasts four hours, that seems like a waste of time for not only the candidate but the employees conducting them. I was told that I would be hearing back from an HR person by the end of the next week, but they completely ghosted me. Nobody bothered to email or call me with an update, and I only heard back from the external recruiter who had to chase down someone at Helix for some closure. I think that's extremely unprofessional, and does not reflect well on the company at all.

Talked with recruiter which seemed pretty nice and friendly. She asked questions that more so targeted the role and how I would do things in my role as Tech Writer. However, a lot of questions felt like they were asked without any context, which would be incredibly difficult to answer without having the understanding of whom the documentation would be for. Some questions kind of hinted that things may be a little turbulent inside the company, and how I would deal with such people. A few situational questions as well as day-to-day understanding of how I would go about to work in my role. Overall, I didn't fully understand what kind of Tech Writing the role would encompass and the extent of writing, whether being consumer facing or internal technical documentation (API, source code, etc.). The recruiter clearly didn't understand the services and products offered, and the questions were asked in broad terms. Unfortunately, going through a recruiter doesn't give the actual insight into the company as if it would when chatting with team members. I didn't enjoy the interview, and also think that there were irrelevant questions that were open for interpretation.