Opower User Experience Designer interview questions

i was referred to Opower by a current employee for a Senior UX Designer position. When i made my initial inquiry they wasted no time getting back to me and scheduling a phone conversation with their east coast based recruiter. i am primarily a visual designer, so i made it very clear from the get go & at every stage in the process, that i am really not looking to do interaction design. my response to that was consistently "we're looking for people with individual strengths in all areas of UX". after a 30 minute interview with the recruiter, we set up a second call with one of the senior designers, which went extremely well (our call lasted well over the allotted 45 minutes), where again, i made my skill set & interests clear (visual, not interaction), and was again assured that they are indeed seeking visual designers. a couple weeks later i was brought in for 1-on-1's with two UX designers (who happen to be interaction designers). i did my homework ahead of time and camera in completely prepared. the interviews were both fairly casual, and focused on my VISUAL DESIGN portfolio. i've had a mix of interviews on my decade-long career. some of which were not so good, and others which i felt confident about (and in most cases ended up receiving an offer). i left the office feeling confident that the interviews i just had were very successful and that an offer would be forthcoming. i followed up two days later, and quickly received an email response from one of their east coast HR people, informing me that they were "going to pass". dumbfounded, i emailed him back asking for more insight into why they decided not to move forward. his response was, "they loved your visual design portfolio, but felt you were lacking in IA/IxD skills". i am. because i'm a visual designer. as i had made clear no less than 4 times in the ~30 days this process lasted. i'm left feeling a bit angry and disgusted that i wasted so much of my time only to be told that the very skills i made it clear i was not interested in applying or pursuing in re; this role were the reason i was given for not being given an offer.

Applied online; heard back 2 weeks later asking to submit a homework assignment; submitted homework assignment and waited over another week before hearing back about scheduling a phone interview with hiring manager (during that waiting period sent 1 email to recruiter to check in). After phone interview heard NOTHING from recruiter, despite sending 2 emails through the jobvite system. My application remained "in process." Finally got ahold of the hiring manager's email address (through surreptitiously means) and contacted her directly. She told me they had moved the search to San Fran and planned to only hire there. Bottom line- hiring manager was great. I thought the recruiter could have at least sent me a short follow-up giving me the skinny. Unprofessional behavior IMO.