I went through a multi-round interview process for a sales role at LinkedIn and made it to the final stage. While the initial stages were professional and engaging, the experience completely soured after the final interview. Despite following up multiple times over the course of four weeks, I received no response. I was eventually told that the team’s follow-up email may have “gone to spam”—which, frankly, doesn’t feel like an acceptable excuse after such a time-intensive process. Candidates invest a lot of time and energy into final-stage interviews, and being ghosted left a really disappointing impression. It also weighed on me during a personal trip, which is not the experience any company—especially one that prides itself on professionalism and people-first values—should create. While I enjoyed getting to know some of the individuals I spoke with, I hope LinkedIn reevaluates how it communicates with candidates, especially at the final stages of the process.

First step was a phone call with a LinkedIn Recruiter. This was exploratory and lasted 45 minutes. Second step was a phone call with the Hiring Manager. This lasted 30 minutes and was very conversational. Third step was an In person with two RM (peers) and an in person with two RM Managers. The managers did a role play with me, covering a situation that was provided to me prior to the interview. This in person interview lasted a couple hours.

The interview process at Linkedin is very 'interesting'. The first call was from HR and was a run down of my CV, however HR told me I was late to the process and that they had nearly settled on a candidate. This was a bit odd since I had applied the day after the job appeared online. Wasn't Linked all about promoting finding 'passive' candidates? I guess not in their own firm. The next round was a chat with the Manager of the team in which there was a vacancy. He was very keen to understand why, rather than go over my actual experience. He asked me questions for over an hour, with about 20 minutes focused on WHY I thought a consultative sales process was effective. Given that most sales processes are consultative, this was a bit bizarre. He also focused on areas I didn't have previous experience, namely internet sales/marketing. After this was the 'final' round consisting of a 90 minute interview. There were three sales managers including the interviewer from round two. The first part was a '20 minute role play' and HR had sent me a brief saying 'the client had some presence on LinkedIn but didn't use it'. Clearly the three managers were NOT aware of this brief. As it turned out, in the role play they said their company DID use Linkedin but found it ineffective. It was also the ONLY system they used for social media. VERY different from the brief HR sent but I guess that's the beauty of a role play - the interviewers have the power to twist it to their own benefit. This was again clearly illustrated when the manager who was in round two then said he was only interested in internet marketing/sales(the area i had mentioned in the previous round that i did not have experience in ). It was pretty obvious at this point they were NOT interested in hiring me and were simply going through a process of interviewing external candidates so as to justify eventually taking someone internally. At this point they asked me how I felt the role play went and then gave me their feedback. The interviewer from round two/the team lead for the team I was interviewing for, was REALLY harsh and didn't make one positive comment. The other two managers seemed embarrassed and gave me more balanced feedback, including of course, the positives. The next part of the interview- they gave me data about a company - hiring numbers over years etc. They left me alone for 10 minutes and then came back and asked me what trends I saw in the data. They seemed surprised when i was able to identify the trends they were looking for. Given I have over ten years experience in sales, it all seemed a bit obvious. At this point, one manager left and the other two managers (including the round two manager) asked me the same questions as in round two. All in all, I'd say the interview process is rather contrived. Theoretically, the idea of a role play makes sense but only if the managers/interviewers are FAIR. At Linkedin London this is clearly NOT the case. If you truly have a good CV, don't bother applying to Linkedin. They'll only say 'you're late to the process' and put you through a silly interview process and then pick the person they had in mind originally. There are better places to work...even in London!