The most frustrating part of this process was that they asked me to do a take home assignment (unpaid, of course) and then ghosted me. I turned the assignment in the same day, got confirmation they received it, and then nothing. After a week, I followed up with the recruiter and they informed me that they had an offer out to a different candidate, so they were pausing interviews. This means that they gave me an unpaid assignment while knowing they planned to make an offer to someone else. They also said they would reach out to let me know if they were continuing interviews or not, but I never heard from them again. Bitly used an external recruiter and I felt this negatively impacted the process. He was unable to answer specific questions about the role and company. After meeting with him for 30 minutes, he still sent me an email asking me to answer very basic questions like why are you looking to leave your current role, why are you interested in this role, and when could you start? It felt like he forgot to ask me these questions during our call. I made it through 3 of the 5 steps (recruiter screen, hiring manager, take home assignment). The hiring manager interview was good, but everything else felt very unorganized.