Dean Foods Director Interview

Interview Details – Interviewed with 5 different people for five hours straight back-to-back. Each interview was one on one and one hour long and there was an escort there at the end of each hour to take me from one to the next. Very intense process with a lot of repettive questions as most had questions very similar. There were several people on the short listed slate of candidates and we apparently all went through the same process. Once the complete slate of candidates was interviewed the interviewing team met to come up with a consensus to bring back the final two. Seems like a good company, but also seems rather risk adverse. They will need to make some significant changes to get more competitive and that may be difficult when making decisions by committee. There is also somewhat of a culture to hire the young, train them in the way Dean functions and then promote internally. This is great for internal career growth and mentoring, but not particulary consistent with the need to make significant changes.