I had a truly pathetic interview where I was indirectly labeled as “junior”—they kept saying things like, “we let the juniors handle this and that.” This, despite the fact that I had already completed my BA in Arts and the position wasn’t listed as a junior role. Nor did my experience at the time suggest otherwise. The job itself was basically admin-level data entry. The highlight (if you can call it that) was a woman proudly explaining that she “also started on a low wage and worked in a call center before joining Westwing.” I still laugh when I think about that as part of their ‘pitch.’ I told her right away that I wasn’t interested.

During a very positive previous recruitment process for a Graphic Designer position at Westwing (during which, apart from the interviews, I was asked to complete specific tasks) I was offered to proceed with interviews for another position (Art Director at WestwingNow) for which I then offered to fly into Munich from Barcelona on my own behalf (AND on my own costs!) to meet in person. Although I had good experiences with the recruitment process for the Graphic Designers Position (which were done via Skype and with another department), however, the experience during the process for the Art Directors position was very different, mainly due to the lack of structure and transparency. It was difficult to get clear response to specific questions about i.e. the team and the tasks. Therefor, after the interview, I send via email pro-actively some layout-concepts for their website (for this specific department) to the creative director (who was in the interview) based on what I understood during the interview. Just to give an idea of my skills and understanding for the bespoken problems with the (to that time) current layout-approach and to help speeding up the decision-making (whether or not I was qualified for the position). Although my pro-active approach was highly welcomed by the creative director, it however only extended the overall process for another 2 weeks during which she (the creative director) told me that the same task (to develop a website-design) has been given to another job-candidate! I thought that this wasn't really fair since I have actually never been given an actual task but just did it pro-actively myself. Also, during the entire email-conversation (with the creative director) for the Art Director's position there has never been a second person put in copy which let me doubt whether (or not) someone else has actually ever seen my output/'task'! In the end, I was rejected without even given any further explanation although I asked for some more specific feedback (whether it was due to my expertise, salary expectations..). Again, not fair after all the time (almost 3 months), effort (and money) put into this process. Needless to say that meanwhile the other position (Graphic Designer) has been filled.