Here's to the most disappointing interviewing process that happened to me... Early January I applied to this Translation Project Coordinator position (based in São Paulo) at TransPerfect here on LinkedIn, and on the 17th of that month I received the recruiter manager email asking me if I would be available for a Skype call with them, I promptly replied that I would be very much interested. They scheduled the Skype interview for the following week (Jan 23). I talked with this recruiter on the 23th and it all seemed to go well, she asked me to take a Word test (compare a couple translations) and gave me two hours to do so. I delivered in time and in the following week, on the 29, she replied me saying that the outcome of my test’s review was positive, and the next step of the process they would like to arrange a Skype call with the manager of the São Paulo office, on Feb 5th, the following week. I agreed with it. I had the interview with the local manager on Skype, but it was taking them too long to reply me, so on the Feb 16 (two weeks later) I emailed the recruiter about an update, and she said "I should have some update next week". On Feb 20, she emailed me again saying "When would you be available for a quick call with regards to our process?", and we scheduled it for the next day, 21, when she told me that the local manager decided to proceed with another candidate better suit for the position, but they had another similar position in case I was still interested in. It was a vacancy for one their divisions, the Dutch Overtaal, but also based in the São Paulo office, just like the previous one. They scheduled this interview for the following day (Feb 23), when I talked to the division manager. Another week later, on the 28th, the recruiter emailed me “I would like to give you a call with regards to our process”, and we scheduled it for the next day (March 1st). She had scheduled it at 2pm, and despite being online she delayed two hours, getting back to me at 4pm, with a simple “apologies”. The update I had was that the manager in Netherlands liked me as a candidate, but he didn’t want to offer me the job he had, which was a half life-cycle project job, he felt like I could be in a full life-cycle project job but he didn’t have it right away. However, the recruiter offered ANOTHER (third) opportunity, with another manager/team, but I had to be interviewed by the New York team. So she scheduled it for the 5th of March (the following week), when I talked to two ladies from the NY team. You can obviously guess that I was already exhausted by this time, but still gave my best, hoping that it would be a serious company to work for. On the 6th, she emailed me saying “Following the conversation that you had yesterday we would like to arrange a final Skype call with another manager from the New York office”, and scheduled it for the 9th. After that interview, one week later, on the 14th, I had to email the recruiter once again about updates and she said that they should have some in the following week. Another whole week had passed and I got nothing, so I emailed her on March 23 asked if they had filled the vacancy I was interviewed for with another candidate. After all, I had to move on to other opportunities. And on the 26th, she replied: “Apologies for the delay in getting back to you, but we took some more time with the process. Today we have made the decision to offer another candidate that we interviewed. We would be happy to stay in touch for any future openings we might have available. Thank you for your interest”. As you guys can see, I wasted three months hoping that this so-called serious company would offer me a job or AT LEAST give me a quick and transparent feedback. We have to be careful on the lack of clarity some companies have, especially in times of crisis. They keep recruiting relentlessly while you’re on hold, not hearing a word from them.
