I was in an interview process with MetaCompliance for a Customer Success Manager role, and I want to describe exactly what happened, because it was unbelievable. The first time I heard of MetaCompliance was through their recruiter, Sinead McVey. She called me, we had a conversation, and she said she wanted to move forward with my application. Then she vanished. For more than a month and a half there was nothing. No email, no update, no “the process is on hold”, not even a one-line rejection. Just silence. I followed up. Silence. If I ever treated candidates this way, I’d be embarrassed. For them, apparently, this is normal. After this long ghosting period, on 7 November, she suddenly reappeared in my inbox as if nothing had happened, scheduling a “next interview” for 19 November at 1pm – without asking whether I was even available. In that same email, I was told I had to prepare a 10-minute presentation with a 30/60/90-day plan on how I would succeed in the role. So I went from being invisible for six weeks to being told: here’s your slot, here’s a big amount of homework, come and present a full strategic plan to “fix” our Customer Success and improve customer satisfaction that is visibly broken in online reviews. The hypocrisy of being ghosted by a company whose own customers also complain about being ghosted was not lost on me. Still, I took it seriously. I did the research, I built a detailed 30/60/90-day plan, essentially a free consulting piece on “how to save your Customer Success department”. I’m currently employed, with real responsibilities. On 19 November, the original date, I realised I couldn’t attend because of a work commitment at my current job. I wrote to them politely, explained the situation, apologised for the short notice and asked to reschedule. That’s basic respect – something they had not shown me at any point. They rescheduled the interview for 21 November. Today, on the 21st, I joined the call three minutes late. Why? Because they had sent two different meeting links – one for the first date, one for the rescheduled date. I was waiting in the wrong link, realised the mistake, and jumped to the right one. On the call were: - Miles MacInnes, introduced as Director of Customer Success, - A woman who seemed to be the Customer Success Manager and would have been my manager (I sadly don’t remember her name). The first thing out of Miles’ mouth, in a rude tone, was: “Can you explain why you are late?” No hello, no “nice to meet you”. Just that. I greeted them, asked how they were, introduced myself, and immediately explained the link confusion and apologised for the three-minute delay. Three minutes. After they had literally disappeared on me for a month and a half. His face and attitude made it very clear he was “offended”. Apparently three minutes are unforgivable, but six weeks of ghosting a candidate is perfectly acceptable. His time is sacred. Mine, and everyone else’s, not so much. I swallowed it, because I had a lot of content to cover in just ten minutes and didn’t want to waste more time. I asked if I could start my presentation right away. They agreed. I started to walk them through my 30/60/90-day plan. While I was still speaking – I hadn’t even finished the 90-day part – Miles interrupted me and said my “interview presentation style” was not what he wanted for the company and that I could stop. Just like that: stop talking, we’re done. I was genuinely stunned. I paused, stayed calm, and asked: “Could you please explain what kind of style you were expecting that you feel I didn’t deliver?” He cut me off again and said, very bluntly: “You didn’t bring a slide deck. Without slides, the presentation feels casual.” Let me be extremely clear: at no point in any email did anyone say slides were required, recommended, preferred, or even mentioned. The brief was: - 10-minute presentation - 30/60/90-day plan - Q&A and interview afterwards Nowhere: “you must prepare a slide deck”. So my work, my ideas, my analysis were thrown in the trash because I didn’t show them pictures on a screen. It felt like I was expected to guess some unspoken, childish rule like “grown adults can only understand words if they come with PowerPoint”. I told him that: that slides had never been requested; that if slides are mandatory because people there can’t handle a verbal, structured presentation, then they should say so upfront so candidates with 24 hours in their day – just like they have – don’t waste their time. He then went into a long monologue: The interview had “started badly” because I rescheduled the 19 November slot “at short notice”. His time is very important and he had “lost” his time because he expected to interview me that day. I supposedly didn’t immediately apologise for being three minutes late and should have done so the second I turned my camera on, because – again – his time is very important. I let him talk, didn’t interrupt once. When he finished, I answered. I reminded him that I had, in fact, explained and apologised for the three-minute delay as soon as I could. Three minutes caused by their own clumsy linking. Meanwhile, they had ghosted me for over six weeks with no explanation, and I was still there, being polite. At some point, it’s laughable: probably they had another candidate, and that candidate was smart enough to reject them. Then they came back to the people they had already treated with total disrespect, including me, without a single line acknowledging that silence. They scheduled a demanding interview task for me without asking if I was available, while I have an actual job, with a real manager I owe duties to. They are just a potential employer; they are not my owners. My responsibility is to the company that currently pays me, not to a company that can’t even answer an email. If he already knew he didn’t want to continue with me as a candidate, he shouldn’t have wasted my time pretending there was an interview. My time is just as valuable as his – whether he likes that or not. I also added that if they are going to lecture candidates about “respecting time”, maybe they should first stop ghosting people for a month and a half and then acting outraged over three minutes. While I was saying this, Miles AGAIN abruptly CUT ME OFF again, with something like: “I don’t need to hear any more of this. I have little time and I don’t have to listen to it.” I told him very directly: I listened to you until the end. I didn’t interrupt you. The least you can do, if you want to talk about “education” and respect, is extend the same to me. Two adults, in theory, should know how to have a conversation without one of them constantly talking over the other. He laughed. Literally laughed. And interrupted me again. It’s absurd to turn “no slides” into a reason to dismiss a whole presentation when that was never requested. If there’s some cognitive limitation there that requires everything to be shown in slides, then say it upfront, so candidates don’t waste their time. Our days also have 24 hours. Our time also has value. He repeated that he didn’t need to listen, the interview was already over, and some seconds later simply turned his camera off and left the call. The woman – who had spent most of the time silently smiling as if this was all normal – then looked at me, said “bye”, and disconnected as well. No comment, no attempt to de-escalate, nothing. I’m writing this less than an hour after it happened, still in shock at the sheer arrogance, rudeness and lack of basic respect. I’ve had weird interviews before, but this level of talking over me, cutting me off, and treating my time and effort as disposable is on another level. And, honestly, it fits a pattern. Look at how MetaCompliance responds to negative Google reviews: when a customer tears apart the service they received, the company’s favourite line seems to be some version of “we don’t recognise your name in our database”. Instead of owning problems, they try to make the other person feel like their experience might not even be real. That’s called gaslighting. I fully expect the same here if they ever see this: some canned “we don’t have your details in our system” response, like I’m making this up. For the record: I have emails, timestamps, calendar invites, and the full paper trail of everything I’ve described. If I wanted to, I could spell out every detail publicly. That would not be comfortable for them.