I made it to the final round of interviews and honestly had a pretty good experience during the process itself. Most of my conversations were with the director and head of the department, and they were both great, thoughtful, easy to talk to, and people I would’ve been excited to work with.
The downside was the follow-up. After the final round, I never heard back from the recruiter. It’s been over two months, so I assume they didn’t move forward, but not closing the loop after a final interview feels unprofessional and pretty disrespectful of a candidate’s time.
What made it more frustrating is that I was upfront early on that I didn’t think my background was as technical as what they might be looking for. Even so, I was encouraged to continue through the process and made it all the way to the end. After that, getting completely ghosted by the recruiter was disappointing and left a bad impression of the overall experience.