TAMKO Interview Questions & Reviews

Interview Details – I went through the application and interview process for a sales rep position with TEMKO. Not really impressed with the company. Job was posted on Linkedin and sent them my resume. The HR department than sent me an assessment test. It was a pretty standard behavioral and IQ test that took about one hour plus to complete, 300 questions and problems. It was a basic algebra and word association test. Then I received a call from an HR rep for an interview to be scheduled, no phone interview. Than I was sent an email no thank you letter that they had no interest. A few hours later I received a call from HR that the email was sent by mistake and the interview was still on? The interview was held at a Starbucks near the entrance that was completely busy, music blaring in the background and customers sitting two feet on either side. Very unprofessional, I felt very uncomfortable with the process and since I am still employed felt my current job could be compromised holding a interview in public. All I could think about was how to get out of there quickly. The interviewer brought along another sales rep who had probably never interviewed anyone before. Both interviewers were not very well prepared and asked a few off the cuff informal questions relating to the position. The questions were pretty standard like why are you leaving, what is a normal day like for you, how do you obtain leads. Overall on a scale of 1-10 it was about a 3. Not really interested in pursuing the job further. I would think if you want to obtain quality employees it would be helpful to try to sell your company a little. They did not make me feel like it was a place I would want to work for, but the market is saturated with people looking for work. Good luck to all!

Interview Details – I was called up by a recruiter out of the blue one day about a position at Tamko in Inwood, WV. The guy said the pay was well within my salary requirements. So I agreed to do a phone interview with the company. I already had a job at another company so It was going to take something to get me to leave my current job....Needless to say nothing about the job sounded like it was all that great based on what the HR manager was telling me. So I declined the job

A few weeks later at my current job they told us that the plant would be closing so I emailed the recruiter and told him this and said I was interested in continuing the interview process....I was not expecting Tamko to say yes but they did.....Guess they couldnt find anyone qualified??

So I went and did a one on one interview with the plant manager and the HR manager. It was about a 45 minute interview with the standard run of the mill questions..describe yourself, strengths and weaknesses, etc.... I believe there were three people that were asked for this first in person interview. I was the only one selected back for the next round of interviews.

So a week later I go on the plant tour interview and they show me the plant and all of the machinery and tanks they have...it is a pretty impressive process and they have some very new equipment. From the plant tour it was apparrent they are very data driven. They collect data on everything. I felt as if they collected too much data and would have no one to sit and process it. Anways after the tour we went back in the office and they asked me what I thought, what I say, etc.... I told them I thought the process was very cool, very automated, clean, etc.....but then plant manager dropped the bomb I had been waiting for every since I heard the job paid well.......the working hours would be 7am-6pm with weekend work about once a month.

So I discussed with the wife and she said she would rather us be poor than me work that much.

Next day I called the recruiter and told him no thanks.

Interview Details – I initially learned of this job from an MRI recruiter. I had a phone screen with the HR manager, who asked general type questions. The topic of 6 Sigma was mentioned several times as was that the senior management had a military background and tend to be opinionated. Of the 37 minutes the phone call lasted, 73% of it consisted of me answering questions, which tells me that at least the HR rep is pragmatic. Despite my reservations regarding 6 Sigma and ex-military types, I agreed to an in person interview. Somewhere along the line, I was told that the salary range was $80-$100 which is right in line with the job and area.

On the day of the interview, I arrived an hour early, due to the fact that the recruiter gave me the wrong time. In retrospect, I think this was done intentionally to ensure that I wasn't late, since it was a 45 mile drive in Maryland traffic. Regardless, the HR rep accommodated me, and had me fill out paper work to occupy the time. I was also informed that this was an all day proposition, which didn't do much for me since I was coming off a night shift.

At this point, I'm afraid I must be vague to protect the "innocent." Let it suffice to say that one of the managers tasked with interviewing me slipped and hinted at their displeasure with senior management and 6 Sigma. My current employer is still purging the ex-military managers that they acquired in a hiring frenzy 5 years ago, so I was sympathetic to the manager's complaints. My experience with ex-military officers is that they don't transition well into business, due to the fact that they have to deal with real budgets, competition, and efficiency, whereas these are non-issues in the service. Additionally, ex-military, salaried types tend to think in absolutes--everything is black or white, and, unfortunately, most successful businesses live in the gray area. Regardless, I pressed the manager shamelessly and much of what I guessed was confirmed. The plant succeeded despite senior management, not because of it. Also, as most of the world has already found out the hard way, 6 Sigma is a wasteful boondoggle and it's practitioners are consummate BS artists. However, since everything is black and white at Tamko, they don't use the restroom without doing a 6 Sigma study. Thus, I prodded the manager into admitting that they had become proficient in cooking the data to get to the right solution and that 6 Sigma projects had turned into political nightmares and popularity contests. Been there, done that, never again.

I didn't stay for the entire interview and begged off with an excuse about the job being "not technical enough." The HR rep was unhappy, but seemed to understand my point about not wasting any more of their time or mine. As for the recruiter, I didn't really care what she thought since I'm certain she knew the place was a train wreck, but kept that knowledge to herself. I am grateful to the manager that had the stones to tell me the truth and hope that they find their way to a better place.