I applied to HelloFresh and received an invitation to interview within 24 hours. I was asked to submit my availability, which I duly did furnishing them with plenty of options for the same week. I followed this up with an email offering a degree of flexibility if these times weren’t convenient. I received an email the following day - a day that I had indicated I was not available – asking if I could interview 3 hours later. There was no mention of the days I had said I was available. I replied that I could not due to a prior engagement that could not be rearranged but offered to move things around for the following day to provide more availability for them. I have heard nothing since, despite sending a follow up email asking if they still wished to go ahead with the interview. Now, although candidate experience should be a top priority across the board, one would expect a talent acquisition service to want to put their best foot forward when hiring for their own team. I shall leave anyone reading this to discern for themselves whether, or not, the above is an example of putting one’s best foot forward. Nevertheless, in light of the above, the irony is most certainly not lost on me when I consider that, according to the job description, I would have been “responsible for end-to-end candidate experience, ensuring that everyone who comes into contact with HelloFresh leaves with a positive impression of the brand”. For my part, I can honestly say that I have come away with the polar opposite impression of said brand. I am unsure whether my experience is down to sheer incompetence, or whether they are just overwhelmed with work. However, given some of the similar experiences I have read on here, I am suspecting that both of these aspects are at play at HelloFresh. This is a shame, as there is nothing worse than the sight of brazen incompetence fumbling blindly around when it is raining with work. To borrow the turn of phrase of another, I truly feel that I dodged a bullet here, as despite their size these guys clearly haven’t even got the fundamental basics in place.