An extremely lengthy and unusual process. 1 - Screened for 1 hour with HR via phone. The person I spoke to was lovely and very upbeat and knowledgable. 2 - Video interview with the person who would have been my manager's manager based in the US (it was a UK office position). The interview was for around 45 minutes and at least 20 minutes of that was spent being told how difficult the job was and the role was painted in a very negative light. I talked through my CV and was asked a couple of really specific questions, one of which was how many emails I received on average in a day. 3 - Video interview with the person who would have been my line manager, based in the US. It was a nice interview and I would have liked to have worked with them. I was asked the same questions as in my previous interview. I was then sent a series of tests to take which took about one hour in total. One was a personality test. Interviews 4 and 5 were in person. The first interview was a little unusual in that there seemed to be a lot of questions about what my previous company did as an organisation rather than the skills I possessed. I talked through my CV and when I was asked about my skills and experience, including my family and geographical background which felt quite intrusive. The second interview was in the office via video. The person was extremely negative about the role and it seemed like they were trying to put me off the job from the start. I talked through my CV again but didn't receive any questions about the skills I had learned throughout my career. I was told I'd meet them in person but I received an email the next day saying they had other candidates that were a better fit.

The interview process is overcomplicated and bloated, a ridiculous squeeze on candidates' time. If this 7-stage process reflects Macrae's working culture then the people running this process do not care for candidate wellbeing and only want to make things difficult just for the sake of it. There are 7 stages to Macrae's interview process: 1) an initial screening call with internal recruitment, 2) interview with the Director of Biz Ops, 3) online testing for the Microsoft suite, spelling and grammar, 4) interview with the Chief Administration Officer 5) interview(s) with the partners the KM would be directly supporting 6) a roundtable with other people in the KM role for rapport/personality testing and 7) a one-to-one with Macrae's CEO. This company consistently spews how wonderful their work/life balance is, how transparent they are and what great working relationships they have with one another, but when it came to my rejection email after the 4th stage the internal recruitment team refused to give me any form of feedback as to why I was rejected apart from 'other candidates have even more relevant experience for this role than you'. If that is the case, why not reject me from the interview pool after rounds 1 or 2? I have been interviewing with Macrae for about a month, so both parties have got a good idea of how the other works, the personality types, and an evaluation of strengths and weaknesses; to not give me any positive nor constructive feedback after spending so much time together has just highlighted to me that all the messaging about caring for their employees, or wanting people to improve and do their best is simply a tick-box exercise and is merely skin-deep. It was a really disappointing experience after conducting multiple hours of interview preparation, and similar to another interview experience on this site, it felt as if as soon as the interview had started the questions asked and the demeanour of the CAO were posed to not offer me the next stage of this process. Hypocritical, patronising, American-led values even for the London-based candidates. A huge shame and this company would do well to extend their recruitment into UK/European time zones to respect their candidates more.