I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Click Travel (Birmingham, England) in Aug 2016
Interview
Straight forward telephone interview. Pointless coding test that is too difficult if you are at junior level. The company seems to not understand the term junior, and expects you to complete a difficult "senior level" test. They claim that your test will then be marked to junior level consideration, but it was not. Also, why not just provide different tests (one for juniors, one for mids, one for seniors) It's not hard. The examiner feedback was written by a senior, who seems to be in denial about how good a junior needs to be, and seemed to be more concerned about how he could express his years and years of Java experience into a paragraph of criticism in hope of keeping his job secure. Maybe his wife divorced him early that week or he did not like the look of my name. Whatever it was, I'm glad I did not have to proceed. I have done many good and bad tests in my life, but this was something else. I can only assume this is a stressful and strict place to work, and that the development team must be an unfriendly/egotistical environment, avoid.
Thanks for the feedback. We do have exceptionally high standards in our engineering team and a rigorous selection process to ensure that only the best of the best get hired.
The coding test is not just about writing code, it gives the candidate the opportunity to show initiative and helps us better understand how the candidate approaches challenges that may be well beyond their experience and current capability. We're looking for people that rise to that challenge, rather than throw the towel in.
I don't know of any high performance engineering teams where it's easy to get a job, so if you want to work with the best I would have thought you are going to face many equally tough selection processes. If that's daunting to you, it may be worth chewing over whether this kind of role is really your cup of tea.
We wish you all the best in finding a new job.
Top companies for "Compensation and Benefits" near you