I applied online and a recruiter messaged me within two weeks. Scheduled a phone screening with the recruiter and that went pretty well.
After that, I followed up and the recruiter responded and told me they like to move forward to the next round with the hiring manager.
Now, this is the one that made me upset because the hiring manager was out that week so they had to get one of their senior designers to interview me instead to get this process going. The senior designer seems a little unprepared as the senior designer asks questions from my past job from years and years ago more than my current job. I thought that was odd and I can tell the person didn’t look at my portfolio. Honestly, it was one of the most awkward interviews I’ve ever done… even virtually. I also felt that it was unfair because I didn’t even get to talk to the hiring manager myself so that the manager can see what I could bring to the company. But other than that, the senior designer seems like a nice person and answered most of my questions.
After a week of following up, nothing yet. Then followed up again another week with the recruiter and I finally got a word back that I did not make it to the next round and they had gone with other candidates which is fine with me. My only negative experience is round 2 for me as everything just felt out of place and weird but it’s a neutral experience for me because, in the beginning, the recruiter was on top of everything fairly quickly.
Overall just keep swimming!