A pleasant HR interview where I was left expecting some kind of follow up steps by the interviewer, by the end of the week. The HR person was willing to, unprompted, share feedback about my salary expectations and further steps.
Only to be met with a cold shower here, at the end of the week.
Something is broken with hiring at Zhulke, especially in the Serbian branch, which i honestly did not expect. I can't put a finger on it as I obviously lack the information, but I would not be surprised to see that job post was either:
1) A fake job post, US style, pretending to hire, and the portugeese HR simply does not know (look at previous intervews here on GD with a similar name)
2) Was already filled by a friend of a friend/ recomendation and they are just moving through the steps.
I appreciate my time not being wasted by a fake technical interview, and I consider that actually a positive from Zhulke, but like I said, something is broken, I don't know what, but something is, whether they don't like experience and openness from their candidates or it's one of the above.
In any case, I would still recommend that you try applying, although I will mention again that I simply did not expect hiring at Zhulke to be broken. Whatever the problem is.
Edit: Final note. Whatever the issue is, at least they appear to be hiring, hopefully it's not US style, most other Serbian firms simply don't have open job posts (I appreciate their honesty). The job market is absolutely brutal at the moment, in Sep 2024.
Edit 2: So, I was somewhat reasonably angry today seeing the rejection email but the only feedback I had for them, had they asked, would have been to tell me whether to apply with them again or not. They actually did, they even bolded it in the automatic email and I stil failed to comprehend it:
"We hope that we can stay in touch for future opportunities better suited to your experience that may arise. Please sign up to our Talent Pool here: (Talent Pool Link)"
Other than their links not working in the email template and that they should fix that, I would like to add feedback that if this bolded (and in red) paragraph is sent to every aplicant, that they really shoudn't do that. They should only do that for candidates they actually want to apply. I will reapply, but there is definitely some kind of problem in Serbia because I did check Zhulkes hiring page and all jobs from Serbia were removed. So, something did happen, some problem at their side. As a final note to a reader, what I just realised is that even if you arrive at the HR interview itself, the HR probably thinks you're qualified, but will, like in the case of some other company I just (re)investigated, reject you for the pettiest of reasons (for example, you won't do 5-8 day technical homeworks). This does not appear to be the case at Zhulke, I was told it's a live coding excersize.
Stay sharp, it's not you, it's the broken hiring practices.
