I had a phone screen with the recruiter that went really well. The next step was a call with the hiring manager. She was nearly ten minutes late to the 30-minute interview. While she did apologize and offered to reschedule, I chose to move forward and keep the original time. The conversation itself seemed to go fine, though the hiring manager didn’t appear to have any formal questions prepared. She was friendly, but the structure of the interview felt a bit unorganized. It took about a week and a half to hear back afterward. I followed up after a week and received a general rejection two days later. While the interview wasn’t difficult, I was surprised by the lack of structure and the slow follow-up, especially given that this was a recruiting role with an emphasis on candidate experience. Since this interview was with someone in a leadership role specifically focused on that area, the overall process didn’t reflect the level of candidate care I would have expected.