I was approached by a recruiter from CTS EVENTIM on LinkedIn in May '25. The person advertised an open marketing position at their startup, EDGE. I agreed to a job interview, which took the form of a phone call in German.
I'm Russian, a mid-level specialist with over six years of experience in Germany — and to say I was pissed off by the interview would be an understatement. The German HR employee interrogated me with a series of ridiculous, overly scrutinizing questions, treating me as if I had applied proactively, rather than the other way around.
The HR came across as robotic, reading questions off a script and responding to mine like an auto-responder. When I asked questions, I sensed passive aggression. The recruiter also refused to share any information about the salary.
Despite this being the first interview, the recruiter expected me to go into great detail about my experience, without offering any insight into potential incentives or benefits. Outrageous. The cherry on top? A change in office policy — 4 mandatory days per week in the office. Whether it's the unprofessionalism of the HR specialist or the mediocre organizational culture at EVENTIM, one thing is clear: I absolutely do not want to work there.
To top it all off, I realized after the call that the HR hadn’t even mentioned the exact job title.