It started off positively with the CEO returning my direct message to him. He asked for my number and called me on a Saturday afternoon. I saw this as a good sign. Even a nice message after our call, so I thought about this in a positive way. It made my weekend.
Things quickly changed when I arrived. My time with the HR person was friendly and informative regarding the role, and included a tour of the facilities. She was called away by the CEO to attend to a personnel matter. This is where it all started to turn.
The CEO and VP of Finance came in to interview me together. I thought this was an efficient use of time. The CEO seemed to have a chip on his shoulder, or was disturbed about something throughout the entire interview. Perhaps it was the previously mentioned personnel matter. I dismissed it as such.
Here's where it seemed much different than any other interview I've had over the course of my career. The CEO mentioned that my resume did not align with my LinkedIn profile. The next thing he did was ask me if I had any questions for him. What? This typically comes at the end of the interview.
From there I proceeded to attempt to answer their Helter-Skelter questions. It was more like being in a 2-on-1 ping pong game (with each of them lobbing their own ball) than an interview. Perhaps indicative of how working there would be. Maybe they were just testing to see if I could handle the rapid-fire and zig-zag questions.
The VP indicated several times that the CEO did not characterize something correctly as she proceeded to characterize it in her way. He then subsequently agreed. I'm not sure if this further irritated him, but he never seemed to come down and level off.
When asked about my expected salary, I mentioned a number that was in the Glassdoor/Indeed posting. I was immediately told the number I mentioned was way out of line with what this position paid. Maybe with a bonus it could reach that number. I would not have applied had the number they mentioned been in the listing. The level of work and responsibility they discussed was quite high for such a low-ball salary, regardless of where you live in the country. I forgot to mention that the position was for the East Coast, but the entire time they talked about it as if it covered all of their locations, including Las Vegas.
Lastly, they indicated they would give me the weekend to think about whether I would like to proceed with the process, and they would call me on Tuesday (Monday was a holiday). You guessed it. No call. I finally received an email on Thursday indicating they were going with another candidate.