I had a first interview with a recruiter, and it was a terrible experience. There was no introduction to the company, no information about the team, and nothing about the role itself. The recruiter jumped straight into questioning, asking about my past experience and technical skills without any context or engagement. I was later rejected with feedback stating that I "didn’t present stronger examples of my experience or demonstrate greater passion for the position." How was I supposed to show excitement or passion when the interview was so dry, impersonal, and poorly conducted? It’s frustrating to be judged on enthusiasm when the interviewer made zero effort to create an engaging conversation or even explain why I should be excited about the opportunity.

1. Phone call with recruiter who gave some more information about the role, asked for a brief run through of experience and then some formalities such as notice period and salary expectations. 2. Call with two managers that started with giving some more information about the role and then focused on interest in the company, the role and ways of working. There were a couple of high level technical questions mostly around previous experience. Plenty of opportunity to ask questions throughout. 3. Take home technical challenge based on a common task for the role. A detailed description and good quality data were provided. One of the managers made themselves available for another call to run through any questions about the task if required. 4. Final stage interview with hiring manager and director of the area. This had a few more questions around interest and motivation in the company and role before spending most of the time running through the technical assessment with questions around design decisions and analytical findings. Throughout the whole process everyone was very friendly and the interviews were very conversational. There were never any questions intended to trip you up. Very responsive with next steps, never waited more than 1 or 2 working days to find out the outcome of each stage.