I first had to call the company to be sure I was eligible to apply after e - mailing with no reply. I was told I could send on my application online. The next stage was a scheduled phone interview which was ok. I was asked what I knew about the company, what I knew about the grad. programme I was applying for, would I mind a lot of travel and learning about finance having come from a physics/maths background. That was great , easy, next I was offered to come up to Newry , NI for face to face and group interviews about a wk or 2 later. This started well with 13 or 14 candidates there we were put in groups of 3/4. Then we rotated doing face to face interviews and a group interview and finally a company presentation. first I started with 2 face to face 1 on one interviews , 1st with a woman then a man. the fist went well , v relaxed , I was just taken through my CV, she said she had no Q's prepared! I was asked things like why I chose my BSc,MS c and why I left my last job etc. Next I had the 2nd face to face , I was asked some of the same Q's (exact?!) , then a q about what I knew about their products and what I bring to the company with respect to these products. I set about answering this and was interrupted, actually this happened on a few occasions which really threw me off. Anyway I did well enough overall despite this and was told by this interviewer that i : "did well, you did very well". Finally , our group did the group interview , we were asked to discuss and come u[p with a plan together to how we would go about recruiting 10 top grads and experienced developers if we were in charge of a company. This group session was overseen by a girl who was 6 weeks into the graduate programme that we were appying for (you make up your own mind on that???). Any way I was sent an automated email the next day at lunch time, which I thought wasn't great given we were told all applicants who got to the final stage would be called by phone about heir offer/non-offer, but.......
I went about emailing HR to get feedback on where I went wrong in these interviews( constructive feedback is v important to help with future interviews and applicants appreciate companies who do this, eg Bloomberg are v good for this , v professional ) . Any way I emailed twice with no reply so I ended up calling the company (twice BTW) . Finally an interviewer(not one of mine) got back, he said it was not their policy to give feedback but he would take exception , given my persistance (ie. if ignoring you did not work....) . He gave a vague descript. that ruled out the group part being the reason and also stated I mentioned a certain salary that was "way" above that given to grads. (I was pressed in 2nd one to one for this, and just quoted a no. but stated I knew what the fixed salary was and was happy with that) . I replied stating something along these lines, and he failed to reply.... Over all a terrible experience for me , v v unprofessional company - DO NOT waste ur time with them! Go elsewhere! I have interviewed for many companies and have never been treated as badly as this. Given the time (Cork - Newry and back in a day ), money and prep. I put into it , and not even receiving constructive feedback I thought was v v POOR !!