As a seasoned professional, this was the most absurd interview process I've ever experienced, and I didn't even make it to an in-person interview. The recruiter reached out after I submitted my resume online. She wanted me to to fill out an assessment online that took 60 minutes. The questions were odd and irrelevant to the job posting. For example: "How much does it cost to send $1000 transfer from UK to Australia using conventional banks?" I completed the assessment regardless and she reached out again to have me complete a challenge. This seemed like a bit much, considering I hadn't even had a phone interview yet. The challenge stated that it would 5 hours to complete. FIVE HOURS....and I hadn't even had a phone interview yet! This was ridiculous. I've worked for two Fortune 500 companies, and neither required anything like this. Still, I was interested in the position, and even though I work a demanding full-time job, I started the challenge. The files that I needed to download for the challenge had almost 70k rows in Excel. Every single time I tried to open them my personal computer crashed entirely. I tried this for TWO hours. Finally, I reached out to the recruiter asking if there were any alternative formats or solutions, and she replied that "As a data-driven company we expect most of our employees to be able to independently solve problems using data in their day-to-day work. Given opening up a CSV file is part of the challenge itself and figuring it out yourself, unfortunately there is no possibility to send you split files."
I found this APPALLING. First of all, I was not applying to an IT position, nor am I an IT computer expert. Second, no where in the challenge did it state that accessing their absurdly large files that will crash your computer is "apart of the challenge". What type of joke is this? This is a cruel trick and truly insulting - implying that I cannot manage day to day problems because their file crashed my computer. I do not see how this is relevant to the job description what so ever. The recruiter's reply left an awful disgusting taste in my mouth. What a red flag...if the company is this difficult PRIOR to a PHONE interview, I can only imagine what it is like to actually for Revolut.