I was interviewing for a Security QA Engineer. Admittedly, the way the role was sold to me, I was not entirely sure if it was a good fit to begin with. The job title definitely did not match the description. Nevertheless, I scored the first interview with the VP of the group I would be working for. He liked me and, as you can imagine, I got positive feedback. I coordinated with the recruiter for the next round of interviews. So far so good, right? Oh, so I thought!

I scheduled the interview and took part in it. In this interview, I had another executive and an analyst. The interview went well, though there were some technical questions. However, it was less focused on me as an individual. At the end of the interview, the executive expressed his concerns that I may not be a good fit because of my background and the nature of the role. However, he did express a positive overview of me, and he was still willing to have my case be moved forward. So, to my understanding, I was supposed to be selected for the next round of interviews.

I waited 24 hours and sent the interviewing panel my thank you letter and emailed the recruiter my availability. I was eager to get to the next round of interviewing, so I thought this would be a good gesture. This is when paradise turned sideways: I never heard back from the recruiter. I waited a few more days and tried again. This time, I emailed her, her boss (who was cc'd in a prior email from her), and called her. All to no avail. Now, about 2-3 weeks have passed and still nothing.

Mind you, I am currently interviewing with other companies as well, and I had high hopes for JPMC and the role. So I sent one last email, and this time I emailed everyone I had contact info for. In essence, I emailed the recruiter, her boss, and the people who interviewed me. I expressed that the follow-up interview was never scheduled and time was running short because I was entering the final stages of multiple interviews for multiple high-profile firms. This is when I finally get a response from the recruiter's boss.

Apparently, he was supposed to follow up with me and never did. But it was no big deal because I figured we could still schedule the next interview. Well, turns out, they were not going to schedule the next interview. In fact, I was no longer being considered for the role. The interviewing panel found a better candidate. Now, this was alarming because this feedback conflicted with the feedback I received from the exact same people a few weeks prior. So I asked for clarification, and, as you can imagine, this was slightly troublesome due to the overall nature of the situation. So we scheduled a call to talk things over and review the feedback they had for me.

The recruiter's boss, who’s another executive, never called as scheduled. I tried reaching him a few more times and it was to no avail. So the following week I sent one last email, essentially telling him X amount of time has passed, and I never heard back from him. So I told him if I did not hear back from him by the end of this week, he would not have to worry about providing me with that feedback. I also formally withdrew my application from all the other roles I was being considered for. I expressed my disappointment at the experience and informed him that the brand's value in my eyes has been tarnished by this experience.

Within minutes of this email, he called me to express his apologies. I was mostly silent on the call, but at that point, the damage was already done. I simply expressed to him the concerns with the conflicting feedback and the poor way the situation was handled. He then provided a volley of excuses, ranging from it was a bank holiday the previous Monday when I emailed him to we were at RSA. I told him, "Sure, I get it, BUT that is still no excuse. I am a consultant; I juggle multiple clients and contacts simultaneously. I thing I always make sure of is to respond back to everyone, regardless of how important it is. Because they took the time to email me, and the least I can do is respond. This shows that you not only care about their time and efforts." He had no response to that comment.

At the end, he wished me the best of luck and thanked me for participating. I did not say much back, besides the standard cordial "thank you for considering me." I kept it professional, but this experience has been very unsatisfactory. I know you are one of the biggest banks in the world, but this is no excuse. Whether I am a client of yours or a prospecting employee, I am still a constituent. I may be an individual, but history is written by the might of individuals like me. This comment may be small and trivial in the grand scheme, but it can also gain traction and cause you much-unneeded harm...brand harm, not physical. I do not wish physical harm on anyone for that matter.

All I wanted was consistent feedback or, at the very least, a response in a timely manner. Yet here we are.