The reviews are true! Please proceed with New Leaders recruitment process at your own risk. I wish I would have bowed out much earlier in the process. I was contacted by a Talent rep to conduct a 30 min pre-screen call. During this call, she shared that there would be 3 additional interview rounds: The first being a performance task, followed by 2 panel interviews. I figured, fair enough, since this was a Director role. The performance task was actually four performance tasks wrapped in 1, where 1 of the tasks asks you to develop a strategic Talent Acquisition plan for them. I spoke with the recruiter about my concerns with this task and asked if I could submit past work examples instead. She agreed and I proceeded to the first panel interview. What was originally slotted for an hour of time took 1.5 hours to complete, with me answering some of the same questions just worded differently. Despite this, the recruiter later shared with me that the panel thought I was “phenomenal” and sang my praises.
During the final interview, I was stunned to walk into what seemed like an interrogation, not an interview fit for a final candidate. It was as if the hiring manager still had many doubts about my qualifications at this stage. The questions were poorly written and were more fitting for a 1st round interview. This interview also ran over time and lasted almost 2 hours. At this point, I was confused, but still wrote a follow up email to the 2 interviewers, thanking them for their time and listing out my qualifications. I was met with a brief response that showed no indication of interest. I felt discouraged, until the recruiter contacted me on a SATURDAY MORNING asking me to nudge my references so the hiring team could make a decision. By the way, they ask for 4 references which to me is excessive. I obliged and contacted my outstanding references on the weekend to complete the survey. Surely I’m being considered to some extent if you are having me bug working professionals on a weekend.
Then, radio silence. I reached out to the recruiter mid week to ask for an update, where she shared that she would be meeting with the hiring manager at the end of the week to finalize their decision. I found this odd since I was just rushed to send references a few days before. By the next week, I received an AUTOMATED rejection notice, after weeks of an unnecessarily rigorous process.
My suspicion is that any candidate would be stepping into a context of distrust/disorganization and I would advise anyone to steer clear of this organization. If this is how final round candidates are treated during the recruitment process, after dedicating many hours of free labor, I can’t imagine what it would be like to work there. I usually do not write reviews and have accepted past rejections as not being a fit, but never have I encountered a recruitment process that has been handled this poorly.
