Within one week of submitting the application, I was called and invited to a three-hour interview on-site. I was surprised because typically there's at least a phone screen. The interview was with the research team, the team lead, and then finally with two members of HR. I felt the interview with the team was positive, but definitely not with HR. Right off the bat, one HR member shook my hand and said, "I remember you, we talked on the phone!"
No, we most certainly did not.
I didn't want to get caught in a lie (was he testing me?) so I said, "Are you sure? I don't think we did...I only applied last week, and I was scheduled for this interview by ____" (I told him the name of the person who set up my itinerary.)
He responded with, "Yes, I'm pretty sure I spoke to you."
The second HR rep said, "There's no way you could have gotten this far without a phone interview."
So someone screwed up. I must've been accidentally scheduled for an in-person interview. Unfortunately, it made me look like a complete idiot and that I had completely forgotten I'd spoken to someone over the phone - when in fact I literally never got a phone screen in the first place.
After that, the interview with HR was a little awkward, which I'm sure impacted the selection process, so I was a little miffed about that.
I understand that HR people may be completely swamped, but come on. I sincerely hope I didn't miss out on a job opportunity because of someone else's mistake.
