Bad UX In Hiring

I almost didn’t post this because it happens so often now that telling the story again seems pointless. But silence is compliance, and we HAVE to keep calling out this behavior instead of just accepting it and moving on.

Last week, I went through an interview process that was a textbook example of how bad hiring is these days — even (and especially) for UX-adjacent roles.

Here’s what happened.

I submitted my application on Monday evening.

On Thursday at 3:30 PM, I received an email (from an anonymous “Human Resources” address) requesting an interview at 9:30 AM the following morning.

The email thanked me for “the videos I submitted,” even though I hadn’t submitted anything beyond a PDF resume.

When I joined the video call on Friday morning, there were five other people present. Four kept their cameras off and never spoke. Only one person actually conducted the interview.

Roughly 90% of the questions focused on the tasks in the bottom 10% of the job description.

When it was my turn to ask questions, I stuck to the kind of basic questions that any serious, professional should be asking:

• How many people are on the team, and who would this role primarily work with? “Umm… basically everyone.”

• Since you’re a remote company hiring a remote employee, how do you handle onboarding? (Long pause.) “Umm… we have an online portal.”

• If something goes wrong during setup or I need context on the codebase, who would I go to? (No answer.)

• What would you want a new hire to focus on in their first 30/60/90 days, and how would success be measured? “Y’know… pretty much whatever comes up.”

As the call wrapped up, I asked about next steps. They requested references… after the first interview.

Since it was already midday Friday, I told them I’d confirm my references’ availability and send the list early the following week. When I sat down on Monday to do that, I found a rejection email waiting for me — automated, anonymous, and sent less than 24 hours after they’d requested references I never even had a chance to provide.

Bottom line - there is NOTHING a candidate can do to prepare for or optimize for in a "process" like this.

On their own, none of these issues would’ve been a deal-breaker. But taken together, the UX problems are glaring:

• Asking for references indicates you’re moving forward — and immediately reversing course breaks a basic contract with the user.

• Auto-generated content thanking candidates for things they never submitted destroys trust.

• Vague, non-answers to basic questions reveal a "system" that cannot explain itself (if one even exists).

• Anonymity — especially at the first AND last steps - removes accountability and reinforces the sense that candidates are interchangeable inputs, not people.

• And requesting references after a first-round interview — then rejecting the candidate BEFORE those references are even provided — is reprehensible. If you’re confident enough to ask for references, you should be confident enough to wait for them. If you’re not, then don’t ask.

The slight optimist in me wants to say I dodged a bullet here, because if this is how a company behaves when everyone is still supposedly trying to make a good impression, you have to wonder how they treat real employees once the stakes are higher and the incentives are lower. But whether this was a “bullet dodged” isn’t really the point. The point is that this process consumed real time, attention, and emotional energy — and treated all three as disposable.

Hiring is a UX problem. It has users. It has states, signals, and failure modes. When companies get it this wrong, particularly while hiring for UX-related roles, it isn’t ironic. It’s disqualifying.

Just like customers, candidates talk. Their negative experiences can damage your brand just as much as a bad product review.

Bad UX shouldn’t be part of your recruiting any more than it should be part of your product.