This was a long and pointless process, I'm extremely disappointed. I first had a call with the recruiter, who then sent me a take-home assignment. This was a 5-exercise document, from which I had to pick 3 to explain my work process in detail and provide the writing pieces/wireframes as well. I had a week to do this, and it was a lot of work, to be honest. I then waited for over a week and the recruiter finally told me I passed, and that I would have 2 final back to back 1.5 hour long interviews, one to explain my assignment work and another one to show them and describe two projects from my portfolio. I had these interviews and they both went great, but after that, radio silence. I waited and sent an email to the recruiter, who only then told me that the hiring manager was out of office and I had to wait for like 15 days, and asked me if I had any timelines to be mindful of. I waited, the recruiter didn't write back. I sent her an email and she told me the role was on hold, and that she would contact me within a week or two. Needless to say, she didn't. I waited for another 15 days and sent her an email to ask for an update and she finally told me that I was one of the strongest candidates but that they went for someone else. This whole thing lasted for 2 months from the first interview until I got an answer, and just because I kept sending messages. 1 month passed between the final interviews and this final message. I'm sure I wouldn't have known where I stood if I didn't insist, which is infuriating given that I passed to the final stages and I knew I had done well. Not even a final yes or no. The team was super nice during my interviews, and they seemed to be happy with me as well. It's a shame that the communication from the recruiters is so bad, I can understand being ghosted at the earlier stages (which is wrong as well) but certainly not if I was one of the strongest candidates and made it to the end. Red flags everywhere. It's a shame, because the interviews were actually interesting and the questions were thought-provoking.

I applied for the UX Writer position. In the ad, it said that I had to apply with portfolio samples. There wasn't anywhere I could upload my portfolio samples in addition to my resume file, so I contacted HR on Facebook. I sent all my details in at the beginning of March. First off, there were a lot of technical problems. I would schedule a call with HR and their phone wouldn't be working. Or I'd return their call and they'd be too busy to talk or in a meeting. There were a lot of back and forth emails and unnecessary phone tag the first 2 weeks. Ok, no matter, moving on. I had a phone interview with HR, then a writing test, to be completed in two days. I sent it in and a week later I was asked to do a "Technical Phone Interview" - basically, going over the test on the phone with two copywriters in Amsterdam. The HR girl was kind enough to give me feedback on how they responded to my test, so I could prepare rebuttals and go through my thought process. She also sent me links to their website workingatbooking.com which prepared me quite a bit. She also wrote "Please note that the outcome of the interview can be negatively influenced by background noise and/or bad phone lines." And that's what happened. I interviewed with 2 copywriters and it sounded like I was on speaker phone. There was an echo and at the same time I felt like I was talking into space. Regardless, I felt I had a great interview discussing my prior UX writing experience, etc. until the end where they mentioned how I'd be the only UX copywriter there and I'd have to collaborate with them on skype. We then discussed prioritization and some risks I took in how I answered one of the content prompts. I felt like my skills were greatly suited to the role but based on their feedback given (which the HR girl passed on to me) they wanted someone to "start strong with clear expectations of the role." I felt confident in my abilities and tried to convey that and when I read their feedback, it all sounded very nitpicky. I'm sure they got a lot of replies to the ad and had to weed through candidates quickly. Good luck to whoever got it.