Applied for a role with referral from current employee. One month later I was told that I hadn’t exhibited certain experience during the process even though I hadn’t been interviewed. The company had decided to screen me out of the process. I replied to TA to query this but never received a response. Checked my experience against employees who were currently in these jobs and I either had similar experience or more experience. The whole process was not transparent and very unprofessional.

The process consisted of a screening interview with talent acquisition followed by a panel interview with a senior director and other members of the access team. I was asked to present a plan outlining my approach to the role, a case study, and competency based interview. At the beginning of the process, talent acquisition asked that I continue to communicate with them throughout the process and keep them informed should I decide to withdraw from the process. This was ironic given that I was subsequently ghosted by talent acquisition. Throughout the process I was told that I had "vast" experience and my answers to the interview questions were excellent. At the end of the interview, the senior director outlined the next steps and timelines and told me that I would be provided with an update 2 weeks later. I had left the interview feeling that it went well and I was very optimistic. After 3 weeks of hearing nothing, I emailed talent acquisition and was told that the team were in a good place to provide updates on next steps that following week. I waited all of the following week for further updates and heard nothing, A week later, I reached out again to my contact in talent acquisition and requested a status update to which I didn't receive a reply. After 5 weeks had elapsed since the panel interview, I reached out to the lead panel member directly via email, thanking them for their time and asking whether it would be possible to provide me with an update. Despite appearing approachable in the interview, they never responded to my email which I found disrespectful and unprofessional considering that I had met with them previously and invested so much time prepping for the interview and completing the assignments. Later that day, I finally received a call from talent acquisition informing me that I didn't get the job which, after 5 weeks , came as no surprise to me. Talent acquisition did not provide me with any specific feedback or rationale as to why I wasn't successful and went on to repeat what I had been told in the interview - that I had vast experience. The process was not transparent. It also made me feel de-valued and led me to conclude that I wasted my time applying as an external candidate. I was encouraged to apply for other roles at Roche but my experience has made me very dubious that the culture of the organization is a good fit for my own values and expectations. If I could provide one bit of feedback to the company it would be this: interviews don't just affect our careers, they impact our livelihoods - please be transparent, fair and respectful when dealing with candidates, it doesn't cost anything and it will help you attract talent in the longer term.