I was invited to a first-round phone interview with an international recruiter. When I tell you that this was one of my worst interviewing experiences ever, I'm actually being quite nice. The recruiter was extremely rude, sounded unbothered, and in no way, shape, or form, tried to have a nice conversation. After approx 10 minutes of speaking, she ended up asking me a question that, word-wise, didn't make any sense. English is my mother tongue and as someone working in HR today, I'm quite used to being around different accents. After asking her to repeat and rephrase the question, she straight out said that if I cannot answer the question, maybe I should rethink if I can handle this job, as English is a mandatory skill. Reminder, we had spoken fluently for 10 minutes. I gasped and withdrew my application after the call ended. This is obviously a sped-up version, but the local country offices should think about whether this is the correct setup.