I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at After Digital in Jun 2020
Interview
Had an official interview/chat about the job role over the phone. The conversation felt very one sided, with the interviewer talking up their experience. The role advertised was for a senior position, durning the conversation there were a few red flags, such as being on a 6-month probation/shadow process before being 'allowed' to liaise directly with clients.
At the time the gov guidelines were for home-working, however it was expressed that home-working would only be permitted for established employees.
My gut feeling was this wasn't right for me, the culture didn't feel like it fitted what I was looking for, and it felt like there wasn't much employee trust or opportunity for flexibility as an employee with a young family.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Examples of clients you've worked with and projects you've undertaken.
I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at After Digital (Glasgow, Scotland) in Apr 2019
Interview
Had to send a portfolio of work with both content and copy examples with job application.
There was then an hour long phone interview which they said would be casual but was ALL competency based. Asking the same questions but in different formats, so making it really difficult to answer. Feels like they just googled competency questions and read the full list.
After this there was another competency based interview in their office with the digital manager and brand exec. The girls were both lovely but the interview was gruelling. It lasted around 1 hour and 45 minutes and again was entirely competence based. This was again, the same questions being re-asked as though I hadn't been asked them before. They also asked some strange questions such as explain a time you have called out an injustice and acted with integrity. It's understandable to some degree but seemed strange.
I was then asked to come back in for another interview and to prepare a pitch for a client and campaign. This was to include copy of 500 words, imagery for the campaign and a presentation on the idea as a whole. In my opinion this is a LOT of work to do considering this was after nearly 3 hours of interviewing and them having a portfolio of work.
Presented work to a group of 3 and then questioned on the project which seemed to go quite smoothly. I was a little nervous but don't think this showed too much. One of the 3 I had not met before then RE-ASKED a number of the competency based questioning. At this point I was wondering if anyone had even listened in my previous interviews. I was then left alone in the room and each team in the office was brought in to scope me out, basically. All teams were invited to come in separately and sit across the table and chat, which in a way was a nice idea but was horribly uncomfortable. Some of the people brought in were very shy so there was not much option for chat and I was worried this would reflect badly on me. I felt a little bit like an animal in the zoo being paraded in front of everyone.
The managing director then came in to chat and asked me some questions and he was nice but this was again at around the 2 hour mark, meaning I had given around 5 hours of face to face and about 5 hours of work to this interview process.
I was emailed the next day and told I did not get the position as someone else who had applied had more copyrighting experience. That really annoyed me as they were given my copy examples before the first interview so I do not feel this was entirely truthful. If this WAS the true reason I should not have been selected for interview at all.
It's a very LONG interview process and puts you through your paces but I don't think they are very aware of that. May be an idea to have a shorter list of competency questions.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Explain a time where you have stood against injustice and showed integrity?