The interview from hell

The Monday of Thanksgiving week Nov 24 I get a voice mail from a corporate recruiter in Washington state saying that they had found my resume on Monster a few weeks ago and I had passed the internal review and that she was calling me to find out "What they had to do to convince me to come work for them"
She followed up with an email outlining the company and and the four positions that they thought I would be suitable for.

Two of them were right up my alley - wow

I was able to contact her Monday Dec 01 and had a 3 1/2 hour phone interview with her and 4 principal engineers last night. Dec 03.

Lots of technical stuff, how would you "X", what does this equation do in a closed loop system.. blah blah blah
Some things I knew well, some not since I went through school in the Army in 1982.... some I just did not know and told them so.

Today they call me and want to do the fly you in to continue the interview - and then she drops the bomb.

Sir we require all potential employees to give an hour dissertation of a project or process you have completed and then a two hour follow up of question and answers from our engineering staff to prove you have a solid technical background.

W.T.F. Over?

Then a few minutes ago I get an email link to a secure web site asking for standard personal info, references and work info also collage contact information with links to .pdf files for the release of my personal credit reports, a release for an investigative credit report, a release for a criminal background check, local, state and federal, a release for my driving record, an insurance back ground release.

I repeat, WTF Over?

Not for a damn application engineer position where I would be designing automation control systems for monitoring power feeds in to factories.

Damn –

I understand typical reviews of information for prospective employees, but investigative credit reports and bank account information not in your f-ing life!

All this and they contacted me…. I’m going to wait until Monday to reply with my F-Off and die reply.

I should be honored that in these economic times companies are willing to go out of there way to find STELLAR employees like me.... (yuk yuk) but I do draw the line at bank account information and "investigative credit reports" I'm a programmer not a money handler.


Ok last time.... WTF Over?

Yeah, that seems a "bit" invasive. That would have to be my dream job for me to submit to that kind of scrutiny, and even then I'd be put off by the process.

Maybe you're secretly being vetted for a political appointee position 😉

I'm the LAST person husein wants in his cabinet.

Duck wrote:I'm the LAST person husein wants in his cabinet.

Lol, husein, your my kind of guy duck. 🙂

Too bad tho. Free trip west. Washington state is a beautiful place to live and work. I lived there for 1.5 years. Just be aware that if you have to live on the west coast its been overrun with CA treehugging environmental wackos. Stay at least 30 miles away from Seattle!

Would you be engineering power monitoring software that 'could' effect things in a REALLY bad way to cause a possible terrorist act?

If so, there is your reason... Sadly...

IMO, way too much information, and information I would not give out to people in my family let alone a possible employer...

I was an assistant manager of a department, of a branch, at one of the largest banks in the US. Sounds good, but the pay was crap, and eventually they merged my department with another. I didn't like where I ended up after the shuffle, so I quit. I was going to take a part-time job at one of those "7-11" 24-hour convenience-type places while I job-hunted, and THEY wanted to look at my finances. I was bonded and had worked at a bank a few days earlier, but 7-11 needed further assurances.

Ha!

I was also interviewed three times for a job at Circuit City over the course of a month, and then they called me to set up another interview - all for a SALES position. I told them to go pound salt. Funny thing is, one of the guys that interviewed me later became my boss at Sears. Luckily for me, he was pretty cool. Must've been something weird with CC hiring policy.

ephil wrote:Would you be engineering power monitoring software that 'could' effect things in a REALLY bad way to cause a possible terrorist act?

If so, there is your reason... Sadly...

IMO, way too much information, and information I would not give out to people in my family let alone a possible employer...

That kind of nails it E, they are one of the top three engineering firms and product manufacturers of automation equipment, services and software for power plants, nukes, coal and hydro to include main power feeds, primary and secondary sub stations across the U.S.of A and Canada.

So that could be a reason - home land security. They are located 8 miles west of the Idaho boarder, so I could still live here (though move more north) and would have an easy commuted to WA state.


No sooner than the end of work here for me, the phone rang and I talked at length to another - different company in Pennsylvania about a few open positions there.

Honestly they are far more appealing to me than the WA jobs are, we agreed that the Sr. engineer looking for people will call me Monday or Tuesday next week for the 'big" interview.
Better pay and benefits than my present job (or what WA was offering)

So it starts ALL OVER AGAIN. *sigh* although I do enjoy the process, you never know what's out there until you talk to em'

Apparently application / automation engineering is in demand.