This was a while ago, so many things could have changed, people could have left, and I am confident my situation was some sort of fluke incident. but I promised myself I would come back here someday and post about it because it’s just too weird :)
So I was contacted through linkedin by Y Media Lab’s recruiter via email. He was very complimentary of my skill, and was eager to talk, so I agreed. We chatted on the phone the next day and we agreed to have me come in later that week to interview for the role of art director and meet the team.
When I first got there, I met with the creative director (at the time, no idea if that person still works there) and I was taken back by his luke-warm reaction to my work. Not impressed in the least. He then told me that he couldn’t hire me as an art director and asked me if I wanted to take on a role as a regular designer. The designer role would also a lower salary of about 10k less than I was making as an Art Director at my previous agency. Okay… this was getting a little odd, but I complied by saying we could talk about it later, just to go through the motions of the interview. The second person I met was someone higher up on the chain, but the conversation went nowhere quickly, as his background heavily in the engineering part of the company. We both had a hard time understanding each other's lingo. And finally, I met with the CTO. I decided to try and salvage my afternoon by starting off showing him some work that had taken 1st place in a global competition. That’s when he cut me off… “Yeah, see this right here? That’s not art direction. This isn’t art director work. See, if you stick with us, we’ll show you what art direction really is.” At this point I was so blown away by his attitude I just complied by being silent or agreeing to whatever he said just to get this over with as soon as possible. As I was leaving, the recruiter stopped me ask told me that the interview went well and that we will keep in touch (heh, uhh, what?). To my surprise they reached out to me later that day saying that they all enjoyed meeting with me (again… what?) and that they wanted me to complete a design-competency test. I politely declined.... and personally swore to one day come back to glassdoor and post this ridiculous story. :)
Oh and 2 weeks after that interview I got a great art director gig making 35k more than they were offering. Really glad I didn't settle. :)