Argo Group Interview Questions & Reviews

Interview Details – Spotted a job opening, which I was well qualified. Sent in my resume. Got a call back. They wanted to know my salary history (no other questions). I gave them a broad range. They said they wanted to send me a form (by email) to fill out BEFORE they would grant me an interview. Frankly the form was one of the most intrusive questions I've ever seen. It was multi pages (maybe 5-6) asking about your salary history over the past 20 years. The salary breakdown questions were stupid for this stage of the game (ie: no interview yet!) - ex: what percentage of your salary was T&E, etc. Just stupid. And then they wanted a list of references to check (BEFORE) they would grant any interviews. I did all this, and then of course never hear back from them. Stay away from "Susanne" over at Argo. She is one of their recruiters and is a time waster.

Interview Details – Interviewing at Argo is a VERY long process, which takes a candidate an average of 2-3 months to complete (*I've actually heard stories in which it took up to 6 months*) - remember this time frame. The fastest I've heard of was 2 mos, and that's because the hiring manager brought in someone they personally knew. Basically the breakdown is as follows.
- Phone interview with HR
- F2F with a senior admin/engineer
- F2F with a couple of junior admins, and then F2F with the hiring manager immediately thereafter.

YMMV, but from what I experienced, and what I've known others to experience, is that the interview process with HR, the Senior engineer/admin, and hiring manager is pretty straight forward - They will ask you questions about your resume, accomplishments, and some technical questions. The weakness I see, however, is with the Junior admins. They will spend the majority of the interview talking about themselves - how they "started as helpdesk, and worked their way up", patting themselves on the back, and basically boast how they are the SME of what they do, and how valuable they are to the company. (The two that I had were only with the company for 3 or less years). When they do finally start to ask "relevant" technical questions, they'll ask questions totally unrelated to the position. In my opinion, (and it's just an opinion), the junior admins are just trying to feed their own ego (again it's just an opinion, YMMV).

I've gone through this process TWICE, and each time, I'd be 1 of the 3-4 potential candidates, whom they "liked", only to delete the position, and create a redefined position, and say "We'd like to see more candidates". AND, this is for a contract-to-hire, position, because they say their normal process takes too long.

Probably the most frustrating feedback that I've heard from some recruiters about why they didn't hire someone, is because when candidates were asked to rate themselves from 1-10 on a particular skill, those that said "9-10", were deemed as "too egotistical, and nobody is really a "9-10", and those that said "5-8", were deemed as "not the skill level they wanted".

Interview Details – I interviewed with Argo Group for a position located in a different city from where I resided. The initial interview was a Phone Interview with who would be my manager and a colleague of his'. We ultimately went through my resume, he asked me technical questions which related to the job description and I had the opportunity to ask my questions.

The Second interview consisted of a 1:1 interview with another person in their local office. I felt this was more of a personality type interview. Would I mesh with the company. It was about 45 mins long. There were a few technical questions but a lot of conversation.

The Third interview consisted of a 1:1 interview with a Manager in the Internal Audit Group, and a 2:1 video conference. The 1:1 was technical and probing. It challenged me to consider the move I was considering, both physically and professional. The 2:1 I think was more so to put a face to a name. There were also some problem solving questions that I didn't expect, but I knew my stuff so it wasn't an issue.

Negotiation Details – My negotiations had a lot to do with my experience and the amount of training I needed because of my background.