Basic recruiter call (who contacted me first on LinkedIn), followed by hiring manager call, then a case study, and then I become uninterested in the job so idk what comes after lol. First 2 parts of this were pretty simple and straight to the point (recruiter call, hiring manager call), but the case study was not my thing at all. I could see how a case study could be needed for more technical roles, but I strongly believe case studies are not a good indication or test for project/program managers and that already caught me off guard when the recruiter vocalized it was the next step in the interview process, but I agreed to do it anyway. I've literally never had to do a case study in my 10 years of experience when interviewing, maybe I'm just lucky, I dunno. Additionally the case study was me analyzing 20+ graphs -- I was not told the prompt beforehand so this was all live, and I had about 40 minutes on the call to talk through it as the first 15 minutes were introductions and a couple behavioral questions from the hiring panel and I had 5 minutes at the end to ask them questions. I found this difficult and unproductive because the graphs were on a google doc which I had to keep scrolling up and down through to look at the data; I was unclear if I was supposed to be comparing/contrasting the different graphs or what. I was getting unclear guidance from the interviewers besides just telling me to explain the trends of the data. I had barely any time to even digest what I was looking at across these 20+ graphs before they started asking questions and telling me to document what I'm observing (also the graphs were incredibly tiny on the document, I could barely read them). Towards the end I become frustrated because I felt like this was a waste of my time and told the interview panel nothing about how I manage projects/programs, how I interact with stakeholders, how I plan things, how I work with vendors, how I create and manage processes, etc.... literally ANYTHING about my previous 10 years of experience. I understand analyzing data is/could be an important part of a program manager's role but that case study didn't feel like it was setup to get meaningful input about a candidate with the way it was laid out, the timeframe given, and the questions asked. Additionally, I had about 5 minutes to ask questions at the end (to 2 interviews I had not met yet in the process. I had no understanding of really what they do on the team or what their teams or day to day looks like - they also turned their cameras off the whole time besides the introductions in the beginning where they basically just said their title and how long they had been at Ramp). One question I asked I was told "it's on the Ramp website" and then sent the link on the zoom. I was moreso wanting the interviewer to outline details around the process and the teams involvement of what I asked, not so much a black and white answer that was on the website. Felt very condescending, whether it was meant to be or not. I'm personally someone that is a top performer at any team I'm on, but I do TERRIBLE when put on the spot for assessments like this, hence why I think assessments for non-technical roles are pretty flawed. I realize they want to see how candidates think on their feet, but I actually don't think that's a real indication of how someone would perform day to day in a job. I realized if I was expected to analyze data like this on the spot and immediately give my analysis in 3 minutes within the job, this would probably not be the right role for me anyway, which is fine. Everyone on the panel also seemed stressed/tired and even basically said so themselves in the beginning. I ended the call and was like yep that was not for me, which is all good!! Sometimes it's like that.

The process is extensive and lasted 2 months. 1) Screening call with recruiter. Questions were pretty basic for the role. 2) Interview with Hiring Manager. Asked specific questions about my experience and how I thought about certain types of problems and systems. 3) Presentation. 20 min plus 10 min Q&A to someone who would be a peer. Business case which was essentially problem solving for their actual business need, which felt like there was a strong possibility that they would take my plan/ideas if they liked them and didn't hire me, but that's standard with any company requiring a presentation, paper, or project. The recruiter said to not spend more than an hour on it, but the complexity of the case required several hours to build it out. 4) Panel interviews, 3 back to back with cross functional peers. They asked about how I have worked with their function in the past and how I would approach different issues. One was an AI fluency interview, which I talk about below. 5) Recruiter call, pre-final interview. Prepped for the final zoom call and explained the process on their end of selecting between final applicants after the last interview. Once they have their chosen candidate, it goes to the founders for final approval. 6) Final interview. The interviewer was a direct report of one of the founders, and it was a complete 180 from all the other interviews. He didn't seem to have told anyone else what he was actually looking for in filling the role. The entire interview, nothing jived at all. I felt like I was in the wrong call. Everything I had talked about in the other interviews with the rest of the team, hiring manager, and with the recruiter in terms of how I would run the program and my assessment of their program needs over the prior 7 weeks, including the literal powerpoint I submitted and presented to them? Nope, not what he wanted AT ALL. He didn't even like the questions I had for him at the end of the interview, and instead he changed my questions to something totally different and then answered the questions I didn't ask. Meanwhile, my question was not answered. He was cordial but it was a complete disconnect. After I'd answer a question, he would tell me how he would have preferred I had answered based on information I could not have known ahead of time about the inner workings of their company and what he was actually wanting the person in this role to do. I have 15+ years of experience and have interviewed/hired 200+ people in my career, so I'm no stranger to the industry, this type of role, or the hiring process at a fintech. I almost emailed the recruiter immediately to withdraw, but a colleague of mine thought it might be a test to see how I'd respond to the situation (which also made me want to withdraw, since I don't believe in playing games with people in the interview process) but I decided to wait and see. It was not a test, it was just a total lack of communication of how he wanted to build this program. When the recruiter emailed me to say they weren't moving forward with me, I was not at all surprised and my family was relieved, given the experience I'd had on the last call.