A headhunter reached out to me for the marketing director role at their HK office. I spoke with one of the hiring managers on phone and he was nice but it was super quick and within 20 mins he told me I was moved to the next round despite the fact that it felt he didn’t know me that much from such a short convo but I didn’t mind as I was moved to the next round. Then I met with other team members in person which was a good experience as they really asked me lots of questions and it felt mutual in getting to know each other. Then came the horrible part - I was told by the headhunter that I had to prep some ideas before the final interview with another hiring managers. The interview only lasted 15 mins again after 5 mins of him not being able to hear me via Zoom coz apparently his connection in France was bad and I was told that they actually had 2 people leaving the role within months of joining and clearly wondered whether I would do the same as well as he asked me why I was leaving my current role. He didn’t ask me about any ideas I’ve prepped, so I felt like I had to salvage the interview by quickly talking through my ideas with him as I felt like he just wanted to finish the convo. At the end, I was told that my ideas weren’t creative enough (which nobody said that was a criteria they’re judging my ideas on and I went to another direction instead of providing more HK local insights instead) which I think was a lame excuse. This hiring manager doesn’t even look after marketing anyway he said so I don’t know how he knows whether an idea is creative or not. The last experience was so poor that I had to reflect it back to the headhunter - it felt like a waste of time and he clearly wasn’t briefed on who I was and never spent the time to actually get to know me at all.

~5 interviews with hiring manager and key business partners over the course of 3 weeks and one in depth homework assignment to build/edit marketing plan, pleasant experience with recruiter and scheduling