I was approached by an in-house recruiter on LinkedIn who set up a call. The call lasted nearly 2 hours. Lots of talk about culture and fitting in. Explicitly told that role was not flexible. You were expected in the office 5 days a week as soon as it was legal. He set up an interview with a product manager. I was told I could expect an interview, a task, an evaluation of task and a meeting with the CEO. The writing I'd do put the CEO's reputation on the line so I would need his approval before being hired. I have to say, that despite the warning signs, this part of the process was ok. It was a nice chat, I didn't really want the job on offer because they wouldn't support homeworking during a pandemic but I needed work so I didn't back out. I had interview with product manager. Standard interview questions. Nothing out of the ordinary. I was then asked to complete a written task, no time limit, but return it in 4 days. Written task was to rewrite copy for an entire user journey of customers purchasing their second biggest product. I didn't rewrite all that as it's a ridiculous amount of work for a written task and I had found the glassdoor reviews by this point. Instead I completed a content review of the existing copy and made lots of suggestions for different copy/approaches to take. I was asked to second interview. Second interview was with same product manager but this time the CEO turned up. The CEO gave lots of praise for my work and writing which was clearly not about the work I had submitted. He talked at length about a lot of the things mentioned in the glassdoor reviews without ever mentioning glassdoor explicitly. That was fun. He asked me about my parents and siblings, growing up, my interests growing up, my work ethic, how I took criticism. Seemed a bit weird and a little confrontational in places. I was told afterwards that the CEO liked me and I would be given another written task to complete over Christmas. The second task was to rewrite the copy on what looked to be the second most visited page on the website, aside from the homepage. I was set the task on December 21st and given a week to complete. This was the point where all the red flags started waving a bit more wildly. I was in discussion with two other companies but ultimately I was unemployed, so I felt I had to do it. I submitted the work, it felt like work at this point, and a small portfolio of work so that I wouldn't get a third task of rewriting the rest of their website over new years. I received an email saying "we'd love to talk to you again" so we set up a third interview for the following day where I assumed from the positive email that I'd be offered a role and have to think about whether I could afford to turn it down. I was saved that choice when I was told amongst other lovely things that while the CEO liked me and wanted to hire me, they were the hiring manager and they thought my writing was naive and that I wasn't good enough for mybuilder. Wonderful. I got off the call as quickly as I could and brushed myself off. It felt like I was involved in a weird power play between the CEO and the product manager, or that I was being used to generate ideas for them to use. Anyway, because I'm stubborn I submitted exactly the same portfolio of work to another company and I got the job of my dreams. I now work at a lovely company with lovely supportive people and feel like I really dodged a bullet. I figured I should write about my experience, as the job listing is still up, so they could still be using it to approach people and harvest ideas.