The reason I've applied for this role is due to their offices being located close to my home (~6mi). I was called the day after I submitted my resumé via LinkedIn. We agreed on a date and time for the interview (I suggested a time I was comfortable with, confident that I would be getting there on time) - then I got their interview confirmation email - That's when I found out that the actual interview would be taking place, NOT at the company's headquarters as I thought initially, but at an office located on the other side of town (~12.5mi from home). What?? Yeah.
I played along, nevertheless. Getting there turned out to be a nightmare. The early morning traffic in SP is chaotic to say the VERY least. And that offices' particular location is definately not much help either.
Upon getting there I realized that this company had absolutely no ties with RDI. They simply outsourced the work to select candidates for this position to some third-party "hr consultancy" company (Wyser) located on the other side of town. As soon as I realized there wasn't going to be a one-on-one chat with the team members - at ALL - I felt lost.
Not too long after my arrival, I was greeted by the person to whom I've spoken on the phone the day before. He then quickly proceeded to let me in to a small 5ft x 5ft cubicle where there was only one chair and one laptop sitting atop a small table. That was it.
He explained that I was required to fill out a test before the actual interview would be carried on; the test - a Word document that was opened in the laptop screen. In there I saw around 8~10 questions, about 6~7 of them were complex algorithm questions. These questions felt they were most likely lifted off some academic textbook, rather than focusing on actual practical real-world scenarios (e.g., as opposed to "analyze this code and explain what's wrong or what could you do to make it better", something like "given an int array A and an integer N, rotate it N times. if N is positive, rotate right; if N is negative, rotate left."). Also there were a couple CompSci theory questions to answer and a "explain why you would be an asset to us" type of question.
I sat there staring at that crappy laptop. I decided since I'd already gone through all the trouble to get there, I'd try my best and give it a fair shot.
Problems started when I realized there was absolutely NO piece and quiet in my cubicle - people at the hallway all the time, chattering on their cell phones, interviews with other candidates taking place in the adjacent cubicles - all of which could be heard loud and clear from within my small cubicle. Something *really* distracting when you're trying to concentrate and think "in threads" as you're considering different avenues for a given problem.
In the end, this whole endeavour proved being a monumental waste of my time, because:
- The company *clearly* doesn't want to meet you - otherwise, why would they prefer the added cost of hiring a third-party company to do all the work (based on a Word document handed to them)?
- The role as stated, required fluency in English. From what I could overhear, during my agony in that cubicle, they were conducting some interviews in English in the next cubicle. I couldn't stop hearing because like I said, there was no acoustic insulation whatsoever. I heard everything (willing or unwilling, regardless). And boy, did these interviewers suck at English. Seriously, it was like kindergarden-level English sentences being exchanged between 2 mentally-challenged people. To anyone with a decent background in English (mine is 3 years living abroad and a couple IELTS certificates) it *really* hurt the ears. Try to get focused in this environment, I dare you.
- If a company has such high expectations from a candidate, both technically and in a foreign language, and this company doesn't care about overseeing the selection of candidates themselves, there is something VERY wrong going on - if the company wants to talk only to candidates who pass a certain mark, then at least should give them a chance to do the technical assessments at home, comfortably from any one of the many online programmer testing websites that are available (or just email them the test in a PDF document). At least it wouldn't be such a discomforting and excruciating experience.
What I take away from this whole experience, is that RDI is a company that doesn't give a crap about their employees. They can't even bother to see a job candidate in person at their own headquarters - they'd rather outsource some third party hr company with no resources and unskilled people to do a technical assessment test to massively 'triage' candidates for them (and very incompetently so I must say), and pay a lot of cash to these companies. I wonder how much these "hr consultancy" firms earn. I might decide to change and become one of them. Open my own HR business and start earning money instead of scratching my head.
