If you ever feel like your job search is going too smoothly, apply at Heroes. It's like they designed their hiring process by throwing darts at an HR manual. Fun time guaranteed! >The Epic in Four Acts (Because apparently, I was auditioning to be the next Iron Man.) 1st Act - the HR screen 2nd Act - Hiring Manager chat 3rd Act Presentation AKA "Free Consulting Hour" (a potential product launch - oooh! I smell idea mining!) 4th Act - Cue dramatic music. "ThE bAr RaIsEr". Not a drink at happy hour, unfortunately, but something they made up to sound impressive. It's like someone in a meeting said, "How do we make the final round tough?" and someone else, probably an ex- investment banker, said, "Let's call it the 'Bar Raiser' and make it unnecessarily intense." Also, FOUR interviews?! Guys, calm down, you are not Google and this isn't Shark Tank. If you need four interviews to understand if a person is likely to be a good fit for a 65k GBP per year position, it means your hiring process is broken and maybe you’re just not that into me? Which is fine because, spoiler alert, I'm not that into administrative chaos. > STORYTIME. (Because who doesn’t love a good plot twist?) Tempted by their remote work perks, I overlooked the glaring warning signs like salary from the time when flip phones were still cool and those alarming Glassdoor stories from their former employees. 1. The HR Screen - Nothing out of the ordinary here, just your average usual "Are you who your resume says you are?" sort of thing - check. 2. Solid chat, great banter, could’ve been a podcast episode. The interview after the initial screen was actually really nice. Suspiciously nice. I enjoyed talking to the guy I chatted with, he seemed like a genuine person and I suspect he would've been quite nice to work with. I walked out of there feeling like we might actually get matching friendship bracelets one day. 3. The Presentation - Here is where it got spicy. This wasn't just any homework; this was "Please do part of our jobs for free" kind of homework. They wanted a product launch presentation. Not just any presentation, but the kind that requires a montage of late nights and too much coffee. I was given a week to do this and given how labour intensive and detailed it was, it did in fact take me almost a week. This assignment was already starting to raise some red flags for me as it smelled of idea mining more than a teenage boy's bedroom smells of body spray. They asked for market analysis, competitive landscaping, potential materials—basically, an entire business plan on a platter. Did I mention it was free? Because nothing says "we value you" like making you work for free. I half-expected to be asked to redesign their website as a "follow-up question." But wait, there's a twist! I was meant to send them the presentation a couple of days before I was due to present it and just as I put the final touches on my magnum opus, the HR popped back into my inbox saying that they have "slightly tweaked the job description but it should have no impact" on my interview. I checked out the new job description, and you guessed it! It was a DIFFERENT JOB. It suddenly went from being the architect who designs the future product pipeline and processes to basically just being a project manager aka the builder who carries the bricks (if we stick with my building analogy). I think under normal circumstances I would have just pulled out of the process straight away, but since the presentation was already finished and I had sunk nearly a week of my time into it, I decided to go ahead with it for the sake of practice. After the presentation interview, the radio silence was deafening. (I thought maybe they were just speechless at my brilliance, but nope.) Soon came the big reveal in the form of this absolutely bizarre email stating that their senior leadership has decided that they actually just need someone to manage projects, they need to be more junior than the position I was interviewing for and... DUN DUN DUN! in fact the maximum salary they can now offer is 25% lower than what was originally discussed. If that’s not a corporate ghosting move, I don’t know what is. "It’s not you, it’s our financial planning—or lack thereof." >Advice for the Candidates If unpredictability and a sense of adventure in job descriptions are your things, Heroes might just be your dream company. >Advice for Heroes Maybe figure out what you want before you waste everyone's time? Just a thought! > Final Verdict If indecision were an Olympic sport, Heroes would be taking home the gold, no competition.