So, I'll share my Walgreens corporate interview experience here.

I was contacted by an internal recruiter for them. I have a lot of experience in e-commerce software and very high MAU services, and the recruiter was looking specifically for this.

I was very transparent with them that I was only considering remote roles or hybrid in my area of Southern California. I'm not desperate for a job and have a job now. So it's not like u either take a job and relocate or my family is homeless. The recruiter assured me they were considering remote candidates, and it was even in the title of her LinkedIn message!

I was scheduled for an interview, and the first one went well. I really liked the guy I talked to, who would basically be the tech lead on my team. That went well, and the recruiter told me I'd move to the next round.

The next interview was abruptly changed, not only the date but the person. Recruiter called me after the change and told me the manager to interview me had to take leave for a medical reason but had delegated his interviews to another manager who he trusted to make the call on hiring. I asked if she was sure because if I'm gonna have to interview with Manager A anyway, I'd rather just wait. I do the interview with Manager B, and it goes well. She tells me the next step is for finance to approve my offer.

And then she calls me and says "are you SURE you wouldn't be willing to relocate? Again, because we interviewed you and everyone in your cohort for remote, your job is super safe as remote, but I thought I'd just float the idea of relocating to near a tech hub... But seriously you don't have to! But would you?" I thought "oh, fuck... I've got a bad feeling about this."

Then I get a calendar invite for Manager A for 30 minutes. Um what? I call the recruiter because she didn't call this time. "Am I being interviewed again?" And she says no, it's NOT an interview at all. Don't worry, it's just a casual face to face. He wants to get to know his new team members now that he's back from leave. Okay, whatever. I go into the Zoom, the third question is literally, "can you tell me about a time you had a difficult coworker and how you resolved the iss-" it's a fucking interview! And after I went through 3-4 STAR questions, he dropped relocation on me! He said it like a darn script too. "As you are probably aware, Walgreens is a top retail pharmaceutical business with a variety of tech hubs in popular locations of the United States, such as Seattle and Chicago..." after his spiel, I told him, no I don't want to relocate, but if I had absolutely no choice in the matter, I lose my California job and no one else will hire me, I suppose I'd be willing to relocate to Chicago or Seattle but it'd have to be after maybe six months minimum and after I work long enough to have trust that I won't just be abandoned after relocating. He says, "excellent, so you can relocate to our Chicago office six months after you start?" Wtf were you even LISTENING to me? I actually, physically, face palmed on Zoom and triple explained to him that I won't relocate, but if later in the future after starting, something changes and I can't find a new job to stay in California, I'd think about it.

I for sure would have my offer rescinded, I believed. I was waiting for the apology call about them deciding I wasn't a good fit. But even after all that, the recruiter said they wanted to hire me.

And then a few days later they pulled my offer because management decided to only hire people who were willing to relocate.

The team I interviewed is about to have serious problems, because the tech lead I interviewed with specifically told me that he will quit if they return to office.