On one positive note, my recruiter was awesome and I really enjoyed my interview with them! However (my 2nd interview), this was one of the most haphazard interviews I have ever had with leadership. The new hiring manager was not prepared and was late. While I can forgive a few minutes, I did wish the interview were more thoughtful. They started off trying to create empathy (which wasn't needed) saying they have been on the other side of the screen and this is a conversation. Unfortunately, the majority of it didn't feel like a conversation, just them taking a mental load off. I saw how overwhelmed they were in their new role. I continued to get red flags throughout and I decided to ask my follow-up question towards the end about being moved forward. Their response was concern, me not being able to execute, but we should connect on LinkedIn. In addition to that, they also said my answer to their execution question should have been better. I'm not sure exactly what that was supposed to mean when I could tell they didn't thoughtfully look at my curated portfolio case study they requested before the interview that clearly had examples of my ability to strategize and execute. My resume detailing the different types of leadership and active groundwork I've done. Lastly, starting the interview by saying "Pick one of your roles that matches with this one and talk about it." They spoke most of the time and used a lot of "buzzwords" which is another negative sign to me. I'm not sure if they purposely was trying to talk over my head (which didn't work if that was the intention); however, I don't speak in all buzzwords just because of my credentials. I use them when appropriately needed in a conversation. After me thanking them for their answer, they responded with a particular statement under the guise of coaching because of the way I replied to their question. It was an extremely loaded execution question of how to fix their real-time problem that would have called for a lot of data gathering and triaging, so I gave them a high-level STAR response, no free mental work. I can always tell when leadership is very hands-off, and overwhelmed but claims to be collaborative; those are not good work environments and lead to burnout and poor team communication.
Those two traits can't coexist and shouldn't be mistaken for how autonomy works. At the end, I definitely got the impression that they would dump many of the problems onto this role; I could hear role creep throughout the whole interview.
It's unfortunate, because this is a place I valued and thought I would have made a great impact, but I see it wasn't a fit anyways. I can also appreciate the recruiter not ghosting me and sending the universal rejection email.
