The team was friendly and complimentary in our phone conversations and face-to-face interactions. I went through multiple rounds of interviews, from the initial recruiter contacts to the job talk and one-on-one sessions. Throughout this process, I was led to believe that this position was open even though a recent hire had been made in the same unit. In fact, when they mentioned that early on, I specifically asked if they were still interested in a potential hire. They indicated that they were still open to hiring the "right person." Skip to the day of my debrief among the team, which was held after my job talk and one-on-one sessions. I observed that the team collectively visited my personal artist's website and spent over a half hour picking over the materials there. WIX provides the ability to review IP logs and session recordings, so I could observe what amount to geocoded data and screen-captured videos of them digging through that web presence. Let me be clear: Nothing in it would have been a red flag unless they were specifically looking for faults and overinterpreting any minutiae to extract something problematic from it. It contained a self-portrait oil painting, castings of flower impressions, a collection of my photography, a few quotes from philosophers, an essay that I had composed and used in applying for graduate school, and an artist’s statement. The session recordings showed that this last element seemed to be the most focused on. But again, there was nothing of real issue there unless these individuals were trying to torture something out of it and place it in the most negative light possible. Outwardly, that’s exactly what they did. During my job talk, I pointed these individuals to my GitHub, where I have several projects that demonstrate my well-developed capabilities as a quantitative methodologist and were far more pertinent to the job opening. GitHub also has a limited set of tools for monitoring its website traffic, and it was hard not to notice that the team did not visit it at any point during their allotted debrief time. I can't know exactly what happened during that debrief, but the circumstances do leave me with questions, and they shouldn't. There shouldn't be any questions in my mind about it. I struggle to understand why this non-relevant material was even being discussed for the amount of time it seemed to be from the timespan marked in the IP logs and present in the session recordings. It seems very unprofessional and not in the spirit of Fors Marsh's stated mission to be "grounded in empathy," to exhibit a "deep understanding of people," or to put people first by showing "respect," "support," and helping to "motivate each other." If the concern were that this web presence existed at all and the team felt that it shouldn't exist for the good of the organization because it might draw attention they wouldn’t want to an employee, then I would have liked to have that conversation openly. I would have been amenable to taking it down. I understand that some organizations don’t want to take risks, but they should also come from a place of understanding and realize that people are flexible and understanding. In the end, what I got was a veiled explanation for a rejection, stating that the position was on hold. However, that went against what I specifically asked about and was told wasn’t the case by two people on two separate occasions. The only conclusion I can make is that I was determined not to be the "right fit." And, due to the inordinate focus on a certain set of background items and not on the ones that I would think were the more relevant pieces, I do have concerns about what transpired. I felt that maybe I had found a place that genuinely lived out its values, but things aren't always what they seem despite hearing from people there that Fors Marsh's core mission meant something and was taken to heart. It isn’t. Beware. If you want a job here, you must blend in with the background as much as possible, even if you’re eminently qualified.