Initial interview was good, since it was an introductory call, it was to get to know me and for them to tell me more about the firm. They asked salary expectations and my right to work in the U.K. and what my notice date is
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Foster Denovo
Interview
Probably the worst interview experience I have ever experienced. The first interview round was fine and was with someone from HR who reached out to me as they thought I would be suitable for this role and we did an interview over Teams.
However, the second round was awful. It started off fine. But once it got to some questions, it seemed that she didn't like my answers and appeared to be very impatient. Even if my answers were not what she was looking for, she could have at least kept the impatience and annoyance inside, especially when someone whose job hunting is probably not the most confident person out there. She outright said to me during the interview that I was not suitable for this role. While I don't disagree, it is extremely unprofessional to throw this in a potential candidate's face, especially when it was the company itself that reached out to me. She could have told me after the interview and I would have been completely fine and understood but to throw that midway during the interview - well what's the point in continuing then? Might as well have cut the call midway and that would have been easier than trying to navigate an interview after being told all of that.
Overall, the first round was fine. The second round was incredibly rude and unprofessional. Would not recommend this for prospective candidates who have faced consistent rejection - this will only make you feel worse about yourself. It is not just the company that chooses the candidate but the candidate is also choosing a good employer to work for.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Walk me through your CV.
Where do you see yourself in five years?
We are really very sorry you felt you had a negative experience with us, it would certainly never be our intention for a candidate to feel this way.
We aspire to give everyone a fair opportunity during the process and aim to give constructive feedback during an interview to help develop candidates.
In order to remedy your experience in some way, we’d invite you to make a direct approach to our HR department who will be happy to assist you with advice and guidance to support your preparation for other opportunities in our industry.
In the meantime, we thank you for your feedback, we will endeavour to use your constructive comments to continually improve our processes.
I applied through other source. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Foster Denovo (London, England) in Jun 2020
Interview
Three Zoom meetings: one a preliminary introduction meeting, the second was with my now manager and the final was technical with Q&A afterwards. Each interview got progressively longer: 30 mins, 1 hour, 2.5 hours. Everyone was courteous and apart from one interviewee having internet issues causing the interview to be postponed 2 days, all went swimmingly.
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