It started with a screen phone call from HR, followed by 3 rounds of interviews. 2 of these interviews were with the 2 heads of the department. The third and final interview was in fact presenting a case (a role play) that was given one day in advance to the interview. The case was related to project management – and in particular managing a team (the ‘team’ was composed by actual employees assessing my performance). My role there was as the project manager – and even though I was well prepared, it seems I did not manage the team in a satisfactory way (I must clarify that in this role play, the team was given - and couldn’t be changed, the budget was given – and was not enough to make changes, the deadline was given - and couldn’t be changed, etc…). It never came clear to me how you manage a project without any managerial powers – but still you are fully liable for the project.
This last interview was quite bitter and tremendously disappointing. What I disliked the most of this process were 2 things in particular:
- the case was set up in very extreme conditions (it depicted a worst-case scenario for a project manager: bad team, bad budget, bad deadline, etc). I wondered if that was how Quintiq operated on a daily basis. It seemed to me that instead of wanted to bring the best out a candidate, they really pushed to bring the worst of him/her. It was an inadequate case and role play.
- the closing meeting after the role play was very poor: the 2 heads of the department provided me with feedback regarding my performance on the role play. They were clear enough to point out what they saw as my flaws – and they added there was a solution to this case (but they did not share so solution with me). In addition, they didn’t enquire or care about my feedback about this process. In sum, the closing meeting was badly conducted.
This last interview felt as if they were a closed team – and since I didn’t say the right words to join to club, I was kicked out, in a very unprofessional way.
Of course I was extremely disappointed, not because I didn’t get the job (after the role play there was obviously no chemistry), but because of the process they followed.
There are other methods to assess the candidate that do not require so much time and so much effort to find out if there is a match or not. Plus, there is no need to be mean during this procedure.
An exceptionally sad recruitment and selection process.