I applied for an Executive Assistant role, was liaised by talent via email and proposed a different role to interview for, which I positively agreed to as I had experience in prestigious global media companies. I met with the panel of executive assistants as a first stage before the SLT stage; interview went smoothly, had positive feedback and progressed on to virtually meeting the Chief People Officer UK - for which the role was to support her. This has to be one of the most chaotic, disorganised, rude and time wasting interviews I’ve ever had to sit through. Not only did she not know what role I was there for (support to her), she couldn’t make any sense of why I was there, said I wasn’t going to be hired as she only hires internal staff, had no idea who I’d met before, showed no interest in my cv nor me and I left the interview with an extremely sour taste in my mouth. To my surprise, I received an email back from talent saying she thought I was amazing, wants to chat again so I pushed for answers to specific questions of concern and one being - who else is in line for the role and are there any internal candidates for consideration. I had to think if this was an interview I wanted to go ahead with again, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt to see if she was having a bad day… I was reassured that I was the only candidate at all in the running. So, I duly met with the CPO again, however eyes wide open and not entirely trusting the process and I had a gut feeling something still felt off. She even reassured me I was the only person, her whole attitude had shifted from this chaotic, unorganised executive to somewhat polished and apologetic. I felt some glimmer of hope. I fed back to talent my feedback and was given strong signals I was about to be offered and they were lining up key stakeholders for sign off. 2.5-3 weeks went by, I chased once a week - was given the reasons for delays as holidays for some staff but I was reassured I was still in the running for the job and had my mind at ease. Week 3 approaches, the day of my birthday and I get a pathetic email saying that they’d decided to go with an internal candidate back off maternity leave… I have blacklisted WPP as this level of treatment is barbaric. The chaotic process, lies, false promises and ethos and ethics is shambolic, I’d never advise anyone to put themselves through it, especially as the very person who leads the people function set an alarming tone for the business and I wouldn’t dream of being a strategic partner to someone who represents all that is a negative culture and sets the tone as that. I’ve dodged a bullet and believe everything happens for a reason.