My interviewer was about as dull as dry paint. Zero interpersonal skills. No smile. No getting to know you. Almost seemed like they were agitated the whole meeting. I would describe the company as friendly. If you get them as an interviewer, youll know exactly who i am talking about. I got the sense the expectation is to hire someone with 10+ years of experience specifically in refrigeration and specifically in rubber manufacturing. You need to know both like the back of your hand. That is a tall order in a dry US job market where the salary offered is more equivalent to a new hire that just graduated college not someone 10+ years into the field.
I believe they should invest in diverse US leadership. Based on my interview, I don't think this company has enough experience with US culture, hiring practices, or talent acquisition to manage the US talent from Italy. I would also question how diverse the company is being that it's 200 employees and most seem sit in Italy. A country that is 95% homogenous and not friendly to minorities. Almost seemed as if my interviewer was shocked when I turned on my camera. Check their LinkedIn. Their workforce is nearly homogeneous...meaning it consist of mostly Italians and white men. I don't think they understand DEI which means they aren't hiring the best talent.....just the talent that looks most like them.
For those after me, I warn you to be prepared. You will be judged off your ability to hold a deeply technical conversation....not your ability to do the job or even the aptitude to learn. This is a highly technical position as opposed to a typical sales engineer job. You'll need to be familiar with product and system engineering in addition to your traditional Sales Engineering responsibilities. Study up on thermodynamics, compressor pump curves, and rubber/plastic processing. You will definitely have to go into deep technical discussions during the interview....and they won't be happy if you can't answer immediately. Some of these concepts I haven't touched in 5 years so I had to definitely Google during interview. Be prepared to draw the compressor curves and the chiller system and explain each component and topic as technically as you can. More importantly is that this is is an onsite position. Not remote or hybrid. So if you do not want to move to dundee Illinois then best to keep searching. I rescinded my application after the first interview. A lot of red flags that showed me I was not a good fit...even though I have 5+ years of experience in sales/application engineering across various industries which should have shown my aptitude to learn especially since some of those roles I had increasing responsibility due to my willingness and ability to learn, high drive to work ( did the work of 3 people), etc. I don't think qualifications were an issue by any means.
