HCL Technologies (Infrastructure Services Division) Associate Consultant Interview Questions & Reviews

Interview Details – took place over 2 Interviews:

Interview 1: Telephone interview
Quite technical, I nailed it as the questions were fairly standard.
"How would you configure an SAN disk in vxvm?" , questions around Solaris Virtualisaiton, etc..
When I tried to ask questions about the role, the interviewer didn't seem very ready to elaborate on answers he gave. He gave me the impression he either wasn't happy working for the firm or could have been that he wasn't accustomed to interviewing.

interview 2: face to face
This was more of a competency interview with a technical manager. Questions were nothing taxing.
"tell me about yourself"
"tell me about an event where you had set a customer expectation but then could not deliver?"
"what do you understand about ITIL?"
During the interview the manager would occasionally take phone calls on his blackberry mobile, and on one occasion checked his email. I thought it was a bit rude.

They offered me the job a few days later.

2 days after the job offer they then called me to say that there had been a mistake on the amount specified in the salary and that the role was paying £5K less.
I wasn't prepared to budge on the Salary reduction so they agreed to the original amount, on the basis that I would get no bonuses.

I accepted the terms.

A few days later, the recruitment manger at HCL called me and asked if I would be prepared to accept the role as 1 year contract with the option to go permanent afterwards.

I wasn't prepared to take the 1 year contract, so after a day or so he back tracked to the original offer.

A few days afterwards, the same Recruitment manager called me again asking if I would be prepared to relocate to Manchester or Leeds for the role. This was now becoming silly, every couple of days they seemed to want to change terms. I explained that I was not looking to move to the North of England as my life and commitments were in the south.

**At this point I should have walked away from this.. but foolishly I carried on giving them the benefit of the doubt.***

I eventually (2 and a half weeks after the original offer had been made) received the offer letter and employment contract, which I signed and sent back upon 2 days of receipt.
I then resigned from the job I had at the time.

The morning after I'd resigned from my job and posted the documents to HCL, I received a VM message from the HCL recruitment manager informing me that they were revoking the job offer because they had found someone else who was prepared to relocate.

This was utterly devastating! I felt completely messed about.

Luckily for me, the employer I had resigned from was prepared to give me my job back.

HCL then had the audacity to call me a week later to tell me they were looking for a different role to fit me in their organisation. I obviously told him where he could stick his job!

Beware of this company, especially if dealing with a certain Watford-based HCL Recruitment Manager. You know who you are Mr SS.

Negotiation Details – It was diabolical. They found them highly unprofessional.
I've had better experiences haggling with a market trader.