Interview was good. Talent Acquisition (TA) was keen and was continuously calling and messaging me on linkedin.
The first interview went great, though I found it dodgy that it was a young TA guy interviewing me from the Spain office (Madrid) while the position is for Dubai, and Dubai has its own KAVAK TA team.
Anyway, young TA guy is keen to take the candidacy forward. He sends me a “case study” which is standard, but I found that the questions in the case study were very specific, and numerous…. Dare I say it, it seemed they were looking for free legal advice on legal procedural elements in dubai. I heard about companies doing this to candidates, giving them an “assignment” to get free information and work.
Anyway, my expertise in the legal field in Dubai is quite deep-rooted. So I took my time in answering the questions and providing clear and comprehensive information. It took about 1.5 hours of my own personal time.
Might I add that I tick all the boxes of the job description and more. They even discussed the salary for the position and a start date for me!
At this point, while drafting the responses to the case study, the TA was still instantly responding to my messages on linkedin.
Right when I submitted my answers, POOF. No more responses on linkedin or email. A few days go by, I’m doing interviews with other companies, and I send one final email to the young, now seemingly unprofessional, TA asking if there were any shortcomings from my end, in order to learn from them for future interviews. He responded, weeks later, with “we extended the offer to someone else” - not the answer to my question but ok. At least have some respect for candidates that YOU reach out to, and who are not junior and do not have free time to spend on giving you free legal advice.
Worked out for the best anyway, as a seemingly better tech company (with an actual office, not a rented “coworking space”) reached out to me and made a better offer.