I had a good recruiting experience until the very end, which is unfortunately when it turned really sour.
I applied for a role that was listed for Chicago (their HQ and where I live) and New York. I did 4 rounds of interviews, with 6 people total, over the course of about 6 weeks. Everyone was very engaging, spoke highly of both the company and the team, and made a good impression.
After the long interview process, the recruiter called to let me know that everyone gave great feedback on me, my skillset and experience were a good match for the role, and they wanted to extend an offer, BUT leadership had decided they wanted this role to be in New York. Again, this is after 6 weeks of interviewing, 4 rounds, and meeting with every member of the team (of which most of them work in Chicago). Had this role only been listed for New York, I wouldn’t have applied in the first place and certainly wouldn’t have wasted my time doing 6 interviews.
I went back to them with my preference to stay in Chicago and also offered a few solutions – I’d be willing to travel frequently to New York or would be open to considering New York if the compensation was adjusted accordingly. I also asked what the need for the job to be in New York was; if they were just now realizing it needed to be there, had the scope of the role changed?
Long story short – the scope of the role hadn’t changed, and the reasoning behind the location change that I was given came down to personal preference by management – who apparently didn’t think to consider this before. As for the compensation adjustment – the Chicago base salary for the role was 150k. The base that I was offered for New York was … 160k. I don’t need to elaborate further on how inappropriate of an adjustment that is.
What started off well ultimately ended up becoming an extremely unprofessional experience on their end, accompanied by complete disrespect of me and my time, due to their poor planning. I spoke with a few former colleagues who work in recruiting, all of whom said that’s one of the most unprofessional situations they’ve ever heard of and would be appalled if their team operated that way. So, despite having wonderful interactions with the team itself, the way the end was handled has left me with a very negative opinion of CME.