Referred for a PD role by a friend. Straightforward recruiter call followed by skills/experience zoom with a senior designer. Head of design was due to be on the call but couldn't make it. Next stage was a take-home design task. As more of a UX focused product designer, they stressed how much they wanted to see product thinking over polished visuals. Spent about 8-10 hours on it, wanting to really nail my thinking around the task. Presented my proposals to the head of design plus 2 other designers. Feedback quickly changed to criticism of the designs, rather than the idea, which is not a great thing to do to a candidate. A week later a rejection email came through, misspelling my name, saying that they wanted more visual polish, even thought that wasn't the brief. Various other minor reasons for rejection were included, all of which were very obvious if they looked at my CV and portfolio.

Very contradictory interview and feedback. I originally spoke to one of their internal recruiters who was very friendly and explained the whole interview process. My details and portfolio were sent through to one of the design managers who subsequently invited me for a video call to talk through my experience and work. The interviewer was late to the call, visibly wasn't prepared and showed signs of frustration which ultimately affected our meeting. The initial feedback I received may have been for an entirely different candidate as it was completely the opposite reflection of my experience and skills. I asked to check if this was meant for me and then received further feedback saying that my design work wasn't fitting with the company's style.