Spotlight (Australia) Interview Questions
& Process

It was a group interview, really chill, with a bunch of other people. They're just looking to see if you will participate in the group discussions and questions. Be engaged and confident. Listen carefully to what the question/instruction is, and do exactly that. Nothing more or less.

I put in my application through Linkedin. I got an email to set up a call for Monday, and they gave me a time window. I replied to confirm my time slot and also sent over my portfolio. Come Monday, I heard nothing and wasn't contacted at all, by email or phone. Then, a week later, the HR person called me. I told him I was driving and he said he could call back, but I mentioned I'd be parked in about 10 minutes. He then asked if we could just talk then since he couldn't call back. We chatted, and at the end, he mentioned an in-person interview. I told him I work full-time, so any time after 3pm would work. He sounded annoyed, but we managed to schedule the interview for 4pm. At the end of our call, he said, 'you’ll have a huge and steep learning curve if you do get the job,' which made me wonder why he said that, especially since he'd mentioned earlier that I was chosen from over 100 applicants. I ended up canceling the in-person interview because the HR person seemed disorganized and didn't represent Spotlight well. I then looked up reviews for the graphic design and marketing department I applied to, and recent reviews were really bad, which was another reason I canceled.

Had an initial 30-minute phone screening where the recruiter mentioned it would be a steep learning curve, which was a bit discouraging. Then, I had a one-hour main interview with two interviewers. One interviewer seemed very disengaged, barely listening and mumbling questions. I felt uncomfortable during the interview and was glad it was over. About four weeks later, I received an automated rejection email at midnight, which wasn't great regarding communication and timeliness.

Applied online. Almost got ghosted for a few weeks until I had to send a follow-up email to confirm a phone interview/screening. I got into a virtual interview with the manager of the department/area passing the phone interview/screening. Provided two references near the final steps of the process. Got rejected more than a week later, however, they were open to providing feedback on the outcome and I had to follow up via phone to get the feedback to avoid being ghosted. The process would be improved if there was more communication and transparency other than providing excuses for not responding to candidates. Not a good look to almost ghost a candidate two times in the process.