I was really thrilled to be interviewing for Gitlab due to their outstanding corporate culture and transparency. Before starting the interviews I was sent their internal SOP on interviewing, telling me exactly what to expect along the way, how many interviews I was going to have and what kind of questions I will be asked. So far so good, I was very impressed. My expectations were very high.
The first interview was with the staffing person, and really more of a "meet & greet" conversation where I mostly learned about the company and I talked a little bit about myself. I felt that it went great, and we scheduled the next interview. The manager I was supposed to speak with had to cancel, and I wound up interviewing with someone on a more peer level. All good, I could ask about being in the trenches, I thought.
The second interview went equally well, but still, we hadn't addressed any of the talking points on their interview SOP, it was more about working at Gitlab. Nonetheless, I was told the next interview would be in a couple of business days. Okay, this is probably going to be a department head, I'll really be diving in on the next one, I thought.
But a week went by with no contact, so I reached out. No contact. I went back and emailed the staffing person the week after that, and she wrote me back with a form rejection. I asked for some feedback about the decision (another thing they encouraged in their own documentation), but no one has written me back.
So there you have it. I'm not saying I was the most qualified candidate, maybe far from it. But I can't help but feel that the communication wasn't there, and we never even got the momentum going on the interview process.