Executive Summary: Not Worth It
I was referred by a friend of the hiring manager. I had a pre-screen phone call with him that went really well. He was professional, knowledgable, encouraging, and genuinely wanted to get to know me and how I could fit in the organization. We hit it off and he asked me to come in for a second interview, to meet senior leadership. I was really excited about this, because the friend who had referred me to him had previously worked at the company and gave me a warning: CEO is nuts. But, after this phone call, I was optimistic.
My in-person, second round consisted of three interviews: the person who had this role formerly and moved on to PR, the CEO, and the CFO. Interview with the PR manager was great, no tough questions, just get to know you questions. We also hit it off and had a great convo...so great in fact it lasted almost an hour. Then the CEO came in. Complete joke. Instead of trying to have a conversation with me, she asked me the most granular, asinine questions that I would maybe expect from a recruiter during a pre-screen-certainly not from a CEO. Then, when she did ask me a meaningful-ish question, it had NOTHING to do with the job whatsoever. Like nothing at all. It was clear she had no idea what she was doing, knew very little about the industry I was in at the time but tried to make it sound like she did. It was just a huge mess of a joke. She took 4 pages of notes, which I can only assume was to try to intimidate me, rarely made eye contact with me, wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise, would interrupt me and move on to the next question before I was finished with the first, and multiple times she tried to twist my words around and use them against me, to discredit my qualifications. No high-level strategy or personality questions. CFO was much more engaged but I also got the sense she didn't think I was right for the position and so no matter what I said, she tried to spin it against me.
The interview left me with a very bad impression of the company and management.