I interviewed for the Senior Product Operations Manager role at Ford Credit Europe. The early stages of the process were encouraging. The role was positioned as a pivotal senior function, and the interview questions were relevant and well-designed. I invested significant preparation into a structured case study and felt my experience was strongly aligned to what the team needed. However, the process became increasingly inconsistent and, in the end, deeply unsettling. After the second-round interview, I was told I was being rejected on the basis that I had not demonstrated collaboration skills. When the hiring manager later reviewed the presentation and recording, they explicitly disagreed with that conclusion, apologised for how the interview had been set up, and brought me back into the process. They acknowledged that my disclosed neurodiversity had not been shared with the interview panel and that this likely contributed to a format mismatch: I had prepared a structured presentation, while the panel expected a free-form discussion. I was then progressed to the final stage in-person panel interview. I was told verbally by the recruiter that the team would like to offer me the role, and the hiring manager followed up in writing saying they would “work on trying to get that flexibility” and that they would be “delighted to have you in the team.” At that point, it was entirely reasonable to understand that I had been selected, and that the remaining discussion was about how to accommodate my working pattern in light of disclosed long-term health conditions and a lengthy commute. In an email shortly before the final conversation, the recruiter also stated that they had already proposed my need for flexibility to the Chief Product Officer (CPO) and were awaiting his view. A call was then arranged with the CPO, framed in writing as a 30-minute virtual chat to discuss my specific needs and the team’s operational requirements. In reality, the CPO had not seen my CV, did not know I had been told I was the chosen candidate, believed multiple candidates were still in process, and began to treat the meeting as another interview. He also appeared unaware of the details of my flexibility request, despite the recruiter’s earlier assurance that this had already been put to him. When I queried the situation, he acknowledged that he had been given a different brief and agreed it would not be fair to continue that way. Because of this misalignment, there was no meaningful discussion about adjustments, alternatives or compromise in the meeting that was supposed to be specifically about operational feasibility. Shortly afterwards, despite having been called by the recruiter who told me she was “extending the offer” for the role, with the only remaining point being to finalise my working pattern, I received a brief rejection email stating that Ford could not accommodate adjustments beyond a four-day working week. There was no exploration of options such as three days on-site, phased arrangements, or previously discussed London-based working. Given the earlier verbal offer, the hiring manager’s written statements about being delighted to have me, and the recruiter’s claim that the CPO was already considering my flexibility request, the rapid shift from “we want you” to “we can’t proceed” felt abrupt and quite distressing. For a senior role, and especially at a company that publicly emphasises diversity and inclusion, the level of internal misalignment between recruitment, the hiring manager and senior leadership was disappointing. As a candidate who disclosed neurodiversity and health conditions in good faith, being told I had been selected, only to discover that this had not been aligned internally and then being rejected without a proper discussion about adjustments, was particularly difficult.