Recruiting horror stories
Let's have a laugh in this recruiting market madness. Here's my top 3 recruiting horror stories:
- Survived 4 interviews, a gruelling 3-hour case study, and a showdown with the Senior Partner, only to be ghosted by the HH who was insisting from the beginning that I was the best positioned candidate for the role.
- Nailed 2 interviews, but my job offer got freezer burn because of budget constraints (not enough management fees I guess).
- Rocked 3 interviews, aced a weekend case study, and then boom! The hiring manager got axed, and the new boss scrapped the whole process :)
Let's turn our misfortunes into comedy – because if we can't laugh at these, we might just cry. Share your horror stories so we can all maybe find some catharsis...
Interviewed two times, 3 years apart with the same group. Acq role at an active REIT. Did well both times, got ghosted. Kept tabs on the group and they never hired anyone new for the acq team over those 3 years. Looking back, based on the questions, I’m pretty sure it was just a brain drain exercise to figure out what views other groups held and where they were being active.
Very glad it didn’t work out. Bonus was paid in stock which is down ~90% from when I interviewed.
Major bank called me. They said they were interested. I told them I am only interested in NYC. Their group is based in Charlotte. Recruiter and hiring manager said no worries and that they said I could work out of NYC if i get hired. So they flew me down, I spent 3 days. Yes that's right 3 days doing interviews and case studies. Not to mention the evening dinners which were pretty much anothe4 interview. On the afternoon of the last day the MD of the group asks me if I was willing to reconsider moving to Charlotte. I said No and mentioned I said this numerous times throughout the 3 days.
I fly back home on Friday. On Monday I get an email from HR saying they are not moving forward with me because they're only looking for local candidates. Like Wtf.
Definitely Wells Fargo
I’ve got two for you
1. Spent a collective 8 hours in IB interviews to only get told they decided to hire internally instead
2. 4 hours of interviews and a 3 hour case study with follow up interview questions only to get told by HR they decided to switch the location from NYC to Chicago.
The internal hire is such a classic, happened to me a bunch of times too 🤦
Had 8 rounds (from analyst to partner), including modelling case study, presentation for another case, rounds of pure brain teasers / technicals only to be told they’d hire another guy cause he’s more fluent in modelling.
Another time I got hired by a partner directly (we met at a conference and he pushed my CV). On my first day, group was completely caught off guard as neither HR nor he told them and he was put on leave / about to leave soon after for other things.
What was the end result here? Did they keep you (the one where you showed up and no one knew you were hired).
They kept me for trial, but it was doomed from the start as the partner had dropped some other bombs earlier (no one dared to talk about it) and it wasn’t a cultural fit overall. Loved my mentor though, great guy to this day.
Nailed 1st three interviews we worked closely with FP&A team, R&D team, and Accounting. The CFO came from the Accounting team and his VP was the head of accounting so had to meet with her and my team for the final meet and greet. They wanted you to meet all the managers with overlap.
Get to the place and get put in a small board room making small talk with HR. Seemed like I had the roll they were going to show me around the office and the rest of the team. In walks the VP and it's a girl I had gone on 2 dates with and neither of us really followed up after no connection. Let's just say I tried to make some small talk and not make it awkward. It was bad. They ghosted me after that interview. She still showed me around the office and everything but wouldn't even shake my hand.
I was DOA.
Went through 4 rounds, case study, visited office. It was between me and another candidate. They went with the other candidate.
I had a friend at the firm and a month later he said they went with the kid of the founder. Shocker.
Interviewed for a position and nailed first two interviews. Invited back for case study plus taken out to lunch and then hear back that the position was scrapped altogether due to budget constraints.
Another one at a boutique IB - go into the office for an hour of interviews and end up meeting the entire team, interview extended to two hours. Proceed to do 1.5 hr written case study and 1.5 hr modeling case study and get invited back for final round with the founder only to find out when I get there they had decided to change the job from FT to an internship.
Interviewed at a couple brand name shops back in 2019-2021. Two highlights:
1. Got to the final round with what was my dream company at the time. It was between me and one other guy and I didn’t get it. No big deal - these things happen. Turns out that guy who beat me’s last name was the same as the company’s name. Not sure why they bothered to pretend to have a final round. I wasn’t winning that one.
2. Went a couple rounds with another firm. Met the big boss and crushed it. Met with the guy who would be my boss after and the entire time he just talked shit on the big boss and was comically bitter about a whole host of things. Noped out of that real quick and wrote them a nice letter withdrawing my candidacy that day.
Aren't companies required to do a final round, they can't appear to be nepotism so they just walk through the steps?
There is no requirement that companies do a final round. Each company makes up their own hiring process. No one oversees it.
These happened a few years ago, but I've got a couple....
1. During COVID. Went through five rounds (yes... five) with a MBS team at a well known California-based hedge fund. Was told they are fully remote and wouldn't require relocation. Nailed the 24 hour underwriting assignment and individual interviews with the PMs. Get passed on after the final round (with the entire team on the call). Went with the other guy because he wouldn't have to eventually relocate.
2. Went though four rounds at a large publicly traded REIT. Last interview was a 1 on 1 with the Chief Investment Officer, who at the end, asked me if I would accept an offer if he made one. Went 20 minutes over our time and was calling me brother at the end of the interview. Get a text from HR a few days later that they're holding off on hiring for the role because of the changes in the market.
3. Met with a local owner/operator/development group who was known to be backed by a wealthy Saudi family. Conversations took place over a few weeks, including going into their office for one of their investment meetings. I started to get a bad feeling about the team and became disinterested. A few months later, I get a text message from my ex that she met someone at a restaurant who knew me, and he was hitting on her to the point where she felt uncomfortable. Lo and behold, it was one of the principals at the firm that I met with, and he's married with kids.
Few years ago I was interviewing for an internship in PE in at small LMM firm. Went through 4 rounds, an LBO. I was invited to a chat with the CIO and was told multiple times that was the last round. Nailed it. Then I was invited to two more rounds where I did very well. Bear in mind the process was for an internship.
After the two “extra” rounds they told me they wanted to meet in person (it was during covid, everything was online up until this point). I agreed and asked them what date/time would work and also provided some that would work for me. Didn’t hear back for a week. Followed up. Nothing for another week. Received another PE offer but this other firm was my preferred so gave it a last try and followed up saying I need to give an answer to the other firm so please let me know.
Never heard back. Most annoying thing is the kid who was doing the admin and process (analyst guy, it was not through HH) was from my uni and pretty much the same age as me and he just completely ghosted me. 7 rounds + 1 LBO for a LMM internship…
Ghosted for an INTERNSHIP after 12 interviews
Brutal
'Twas fall of 2021, a fresh first-year creates a LinkedIn profile and begins sending out connection requests to alumni, as one does.
AN1 requests said first-year's Instagram and slides into the DMs, eventually wants to get drinks and "mock." First-year pushes back, wanting to remain professional, nothing further [other than being spammed constantly by AN1].
Summer of 2022, first-year interns in same building as AN1, agrees to get coffee [in light of SA23 recruitment - hoping to get a resume push/referral]. Agrees to also get drinks later that day, AN1 buys many, MANY drinks and shots [trying to get said first-year drunk, question mark]. Things escalate, first-year stops AN1, who tries to continue, and leaves. AN1 follows up and acknowledges that first-year said to stop, nothing further.
Spring 2023, AN1 randomly admits to being on/off in relationship since fall 2021. Fall 2023, said first-year's constant applying to AN1's firm gains traction, goes on coffee chat with an AN1, gets interview. 2 analysts on invite - AN1 with the gf is one of them, shock. DOA? Probably. AN1 pretends we are meeting for first time, interview goes great - lots of jokes, extremely friendly. Other analysts says I would hear back soon - got ghosted and received auto-rejection weeks later.
You were the first-year girl?
man, that sucks by the way.
yeah, it does - kind of sad, i'm not one to play the diversity card but had no LinkedIn profile picture at the time and there was no reason to take it to Instagram since I was genuinely trying to network and have not been taken seriously by this person
One firm that I spent hours studying for the Excel test, I had a phone interview for. Went great. She sent me the Wonderlic. Then once that was sent, she was like a hiring director will reach out in a week to send me the Excel model test. I studied for it and bought REFM and then she reached out to me and told me that my credentials are great but she’s no longer hiring. I’m not in a big market and finding analyst are really tough :( hope I find something soon.
Market is tough now but it's all cycles so keep pushing !!!
My story is from late 2007, my senior year in school (southeast USA) before I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. This was not for a finance job - it would have been for a sales training program at a middle-market, privately-held manufacturing company (think stuff you use when building commercial structures). A guy a year ahead of me in school had been hired for this same job and was doing really well and spoke very highly of the company.
1st round interview was on campus with the guy I knew and his sales manager. I pass and get connected with the company's internal recruiting coordinator lady.
2nd round is over the phone with Recruiting Lady. We connect well and I do the all the personality testing online and phone screens. I pass all this and build great connection with Recruiting Lady.
3rd round will be with so-and-so who leads the Whatever division. He's in Denver and that's where I'd be located so they fly me out to Denver (out and back on the same day) to meet with this guy and a dude on his team. All goes well and they say you'll hear from us. Great.
Couple weeks go by and I get a call from Recruiting Lady and she says that the Whatever division is revising their budget and no longer has a need, but that I'm still a preferred candidate so they want to keep the process going and find a place with a need. (In hindsight, I'm guessing that the slowdown in economy was starting to show up and budgets were being revised downward as the Whatever division was the sales channel for general commercial buildings).
4th round - they find a need in the [Whichever] division that targets municipal sector. Cool. That guy is located in Seattle so they put me on a plane and fly me across the country to Seattle where I am picked up at the airport by this division manager and his wife and we go to a Seattle Supersonics basketball game together so they can measure my social abilities. Keep in mind, I have literally ZERO interest in or knowledge of sports and so I am completely at a loss on this and its early evening so I am expecting that we will eventually go out to dinner together. Nope - after the game they tell me that since they live on one of the islands, the last ferry leaves soon and they have to get back so they drop me at a very nice hotel and tell me to just get whatever I want from room service and the company will pay the bill. OK.
Next day, I meet up with the guy in downtown Seattle and we walk around doing the interview (he works remotely so there's no office) and then he drives me back to the airport saying that he likes me and wants to bring me on board and says that the next round will be at company HQ in Pennsylvania. Recruiting Lady is telling me throughout all these rounds that things are going well and I'm making good impressions and that I'm among the final candidates and that she really likes me and wants me to win the bake-off.
5th round - couple weeks later, I get flown to their HQ in Pennsylvania for a 2-day series of interviews with training program manager, current trainees, and engineering teams who explain why their products are cool and we tour the factory and the whole nine yards. Finally meet with the C-level head of the whole sales division and its clear from the first moment that he doesn't like me. I try to recover but he's asking the questions that no college kid would know ("Now when a municipal entity is developing a new wastewater facility, who is the first stakeholder that you would go to to make sure our products are chosen?") and after about 15 mins he says thanks for coming out and sends me on my way.
Fly back home (all of this taking place in the months of my last semester) and get a call a few days later from Recruiting Lady who is clearly pained to tell me that I'm not hired. Cool.
All told, I'm glad I didn't get the job. It wouldn't have been a good fit in the long run and the final position I would have gotten would have been selling in Arizona and covering the southwest market. Given the meltdown that occurred in 2008+, prospects probably would have dried up and I really didn't want to move to Arizona.
This might be the worst I've ever heard
I was interested in a MM PE firm and the MD at my bank was close friends with an MD at the firm. I apply online to an off cycle posting and ask my MD for a referral, 3 weeks later he says he forwarded my resume to the PE firm. A few weeks later I get an auto-rejection email and I’m thinking wtf but two days later I get an email from HR that I have a call with the partner who oversees recruiting - I think awesome since I know that a call with him is the first round. I prep for the interview all week and get on the call. The partner opens with “so we got your resume from X and understand you wanted to learn more about the firm, what do you want to know” my heart sinks - not an interview. Chat with him for 15 minutes and he ends by saying they don’t hire from my bank
A fair amount of deductive wisdom in this thread.
Maybe we should start another thread or add into this one: "Top 3 Things to avoid a recruiting horror story".
Most of this is just interpersonal nonsense. Hard to anticipate or predict. Just have to react accordingly once it happens.
Interviewed for entry level investment role at large REPE halfway across country. signed offer almost a year in advance, told 2 weeks before moving in that there was no capacity on the team and role got switched to back office.
Wow, now that sucks. Hope you are doing better now.
That’s insane they deserve to be exposed!
Went through maybe 3 or 4 zoom interviews with my would be direct supervisor, team members, and a senior partner. Every time I interviewed it seemed I would get the next one scheduled quicker than the last. It would only sometimes be a day or 2 before they reach out to me. The last round they got back to me the same day saying they wanted to fly me down there for a full day and gave me some dates for the following week or so. I said great, but what is the comp range (no one was able to tell me). Silence for about a week and a half, then they finally gave me a range, a pretty big one but it was close enough for me to spend my time flying down. I said I can come down but I had some deadlines move up on me so the dates they provided wont work anymore. They said some of the key people won't be in some of the dates I suggested and it would be too far out when everyone would be back in the office. Fine, I booked for the original date, lied about taking a last min weekend vacation at the lake, got it approved but needed to have a meeting first thing in the morning. I literally sat down in a coffee shop next to the building I was going to be interviewing in about a half hour before my interview and had a meeting with my present employer. Luckily I didn't need to have my camera on because it would have looked so weird being in a jacket when I said I was at the lake. Rushed through my meeting, to get to my interview on time. Met with virtually all of the same people I have zoomed with before except the founder and CEO. His interview was super tough and I was so unprepared for it but somehow turned it around in the end. Then I grabbed a drink with the person who would be my direct supervisor after the interview was over and left feeling very confident. They said 2 weeks and we will let you know. Nothing after 2 weeks, followed up, then a couple days after "Sorry, people are out of town for the holiday back to you after" 2 more follow ups after that and I ended up being ghosted. The position is still on their website. I hate it here.
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