Unprepared, beyond the hiring manager no one in the hiring team had bothered with preparing questions so there were often terrible lulls in discussion as someone tried to come up with something. I’ve never experienced such an unprepared interview and would never imagine conducting one myself in such a way it would be mortifying. Even for early stage interviews with a hiring team I at a minimum consider the applicant’s application and CV, and prepare some starter questions accordingly. On receiving a rejection and asking for feedback I was told I should have prepared more for the questions, and that as a woman I should speak louder to be heard. I have clearly been lucky to never feel othered as a woman in science before but I was so shocked to find myself being told to “act like a man” in a professional interview setting with such a large company. I provided this feedback to AstraZeneca but from speaking to current employees I get the impression this will fall on deaf ears. In my eyes at least I had a lucky escape, I am really very disappointed in how I was treated.