Without a doubt, the worst candidate experience I have ever encountered in over ten years of recruitment. Five weeks after submitting my application, I got a call requesting an initial phone screen and we agreed a time. I requested a confirmation email, but didn't get one. I sent a message to the recruiter the day before the interview to request confirmation, but got no reply. The agreed time came, nobody called me. I tried to call the recruiter several times but got no reply, then sent an email which was ignored until four days later, when I received a call blaming an issue with the recruiter’s cell phone… The phone screen was rescheduled for the next week, after which the recruiter said that a Skype interview with the manager for the role would be set up, and that I would receive a request to complete some online tests. The Skype call was set up for the following week. The manager asked about my experience and my interest in the role, and my feeling was that it had gone well. He asked if I had completed the online tests and I told him that I hadn’t yet received the request, so he said he would follow up on this. Two weeks later I received an email requesting that I take the tests via a weblink, only there was no link in the email. I tried again to call the recruiter and got no answer, so I emailed back. Another day later and the recruiter finally sends me the link. I completed the tests (a personality test and an abstract reasoning test, an hour in total) and sent a message to the recruiter and the manager to let them know. The manager came back to me a few days later to say he would look into my test results and be in touch “early next week”. Next week came and went with no contact from anyone at VF. At this point, I figure they’re not interested in me and, having seen the other negative reviews here, I’m assuming that their MO is to just ignore unsuccessful applicants, as many other reviews complain of having never heard back and having their attempts to follow up ignored. Nonetheless, I attempted to contact the recruiter by email and by phone, and sure enough I’m ignored. Another week passes, so it has now been five weeks since my interview and three since I completed the tests. I sent an email to the recruiter and the manager requesting, at the very least, confirmation that I had been unsuccessful. This doesn’t seem unreasonable after the time I’d invested, to say nothing of professionalism or basic courtesy. I got an email back from the recruiter promising an update by the end of the week, but yet again the deadline passes with no news. I sent another email the following Monday and received a call later that day from the recruiter to say that my application is still under consideration and they’re still waiting for a response from the manager. At this point, I’m really starting to lose interest. A big part of this role involves driving recruitment best practice, but if the standards of the manager himself are so low that he considers it acceptable to make an applicant wait six weeks (and counting) for interview feedback, is he really someone I want to work with? Another week passes and I sent an email to the recruiter saying that I would be withdrawing my application at the end of the week. I received a call that evening to tell me that they were pursuing another candidate. All told, an almost comically bad experience from start to finish. Overlooking the clear need for serious operational improvement (this whole charade took over three months), what struck me the most was the total lack of interest in delivering a good candidate experience, and an almost sociopathic disregard for the human element. Between the manager and the recruiter, at least ten attempts by me to get an update were ignored, and not once did the recruiter ever answer my calls. I have been in recruitment for over ten years, so I have heard every excuse there is, but absolutely nothing can justify making a candidate wait seven weeks for interview feedback. The recruiter offered to arrange a time for the manager to provide me with feedback. A month earlier, I would have been keen to hear it, but by this point I was so angry and had lost interest in the role, so I had no desire to waste time in attaining feedback from someone who had shown me such disregard, as I told the recruiter. One of the reviews here talks about being treated with 'disdain'. When I read this, I took it with a pinch of salt, but disdain is really the only word which can do justice to this experience, and if the level of disdain with which applicants are treated by people whose roles are supposed to involve making the company look appealing as an employer is indicative of their culture at large, not only am I glad to have dodged the bullet, but I also doubt that I will ever be able to bring myself to buy a VF product again, as I have no desire to contribute to a business that views people with such contempt.