Recruiter reached out to me. Even though it wasn't a role I would have considered without the prompt, I spoke with the initial recruiter and then the specific recruiter who sources for the role. All of that part of the process was super positive. It was the onsite that was probably the worst interview experience I have ever had. They had me come onsite for a series of three half hour/forty five minute interviews - cultural fit, case, daily scenarios. I had been through this type of batched/panel interview before, so that was not particularly intimidating or negative.
The first interview was a female and a male; the man was on his phone the entire time and did not ask a single question. Most of the interview revolved around them. A good portion of the female's line of questioning was around an employee that seemed to be "dropping the ball" on tasks. A lot of conversation actually felt like she was looking to get free management advice, which made me question the quality of her management.
The second interview was the case. In reviewing the schedule, I had seen that the case would be administered by two men, and as female candidate I was nervous about my comfort level. Similar to the previous interview, the two men told me all about themselves without asking a single question of me. Then I was given a sheet of paper with the case and maybe 10 minutes to review, during which the two men legitimately stared at me for the duration of my review. I performed terribly on the case because I was too flustered by a lack of knowledge of ecomm and the fact that this method was just not how I performed best (not to mentioned my feelings of objectification). After the case, I asked the interviewers a couple questions about sustainability and D&I, to which they had little to no knowledge, and actually came off as defensive.
The last interview was the daily scenarios. Halfway through reading them, I thought to myself "is this seriously the job? I seriously don't want to do this. Considering I just failed the case, maybe I should just leave now." But I didn't, I stayed and completed the interview. At the completion, the last person I interviewed with said to me "it's late in the day, you don't need to manufacture any questions". That was probably the nail in the coffin for Wayfair and I.
For the first time in my career, I did not send a single follow up thank you. I consider myself an authentic person, so to send a thank you felt like it would have been inauthentic, as it was neither nice to meet any of the people I interviewed with nor did I want to put my career in any of their hands. No one had cared to get to know me as a potential employee or given any compelling reason why I would want to work for them.
To top it off, the recruiters didn't even communicate that I wasn't moving forward. I could easily have guessed that was the case, but seriously, I spent 4 hours of my day there, took a day off of work - the least they should have done is communicated the final decision.
As the business grows, having a predominantly male/white/privileged staff is going to show just how out of touch they are with their consumer base. Wayfair dodged a bullet in not hiring me (I would have definitely been too outspoken for their culture). But I also dodged a bullet by not selling out my principles to work there.