I was a victim of a bad and inexperienced interview process, and I would love to be part of this company because it has a very good product with lots of potential for improvement. I hope this will remain the case, as the workforce here is somewhat inexperienced, which was evident in the interview process.

I had one phone call with the company recruiter, which went fine, and then one with the QA manager, which was also good. The QA manager had just become a manager directly from a senior QA role, which was reflected in the interview.

After this, everything went crazy. I was called for an onsite interview, and in an email, the company recruiter mentioned some coding skills, specifically Java, which was not part of the job description. I discussed this with the recruiter and told her that the QA manager had mentioned there was no automation requirement and that there must be some disconnect. She contacted me, apologized for the confusion her email may have caused, and agreed that this position did not have any automation requirement, nor would it during the interview.

However, on the day of the interview, both interviewers were also disconnected and did not know the exact requirements of this position. They were also not part of the team for which hiring was in progress. They both started asking automation-related questions, which surprised me. I informed them that I was told there was no automation requirement for this position, but they insisted (especially the second interviewer) that they would follow the process. This made no sense, as they were interviewing me for something that was not part of the job. I continued and gave answers that, in my view, were decent, considering I was caught off guard in this weird situation.

After the interview, when I came out, I met the recruiting manager. I told him about this automation issue, and he was also surprised. He mentioned that he had spoken with the hiring manager and that there should not be any automation involved. According to him, both interviewers were confused and disconnected, and the QA manager would speak with him. He also stated that the interview and hiring process at Guidewire is not mature, but they are improving.

After the interview, when I inquired about the status, I was told that they could not offer me a position due to this automation aspect (which I still believe I did not perform poorly on). I found this very disappointing, as I had spent a lot of time on it. To have it end this way due to something that was not even needed was unacceptable to me. I sent an email to the recruiter detailing everything that happened during my interview and my conversation with the recruiting manager, asking her to remove this blocker, as I was genuinely willing to work for this product. Today, I received an email from her indicating that they had spoken with the hiring manager, and he changed the description on the fly, now stating that this position requires automation, which is ridiculous.

I wish I had saved the time I spent on this interview process.

Advice to management: Your recruiters are good and professional, but they need some maturity in the hiring process and workforce. Things like the issues I've mentioned above are not acceptable.