I applied almost a month back. They scheduled me through four weeks of interviews, consisting of 5 rounds. Was told in the afternoon today by one of the recruiters that I had cleared all five rounds, and that they will be scheduling me to two more rounds with senior leadership. Which was great; I too thought there was a great fit between the team and me.
An hour later, another recruiter emailed in, and said, actually, their needs have changed, that they wanted this profile to be Mandarin-speaking, and asked if I speak the language. I said no. And so, now I have been told they will not be proceeding with my profile anymore.
I had been genuinely excited about the company and what they are doing. But this was completely out of the blue, and frankly, very disappointing. Astonishing that a company would realise only after a month into a process, and after clearing 5 interviews with them, that they actually needed Mandarin skills to begin with. In English-speaking Singapore, that effectively restricts the role only to people of Chinese origin.
