I applied online. I interviewed at Henkel (Salisbury, NC) in Sep 2017
Interview
I applied on line sometime during the last week of July 2017 and was rejected almost within days. I understood their decision, since I was from a different chemical industry although the requirement for this position was very rudimentary. In fact anybody with a chemical engineering degree and experienced in running a process line would have made this first cut. I had a masters in Chem. Eng. but my bachelors was another branch of Eng. but related.
But lo and behold, in about 3 to 4 weeks, I got a call from the position’s ‘hiring manager’ who went over my resume, my interests and other details at a pretty thorough level. We even spoke about one of my graduate school professors who happened to be known to the manager. At the end of the conversation I was told that they had some internal candidates to pass through first and would get back if they wanted to proceed further. Again, I did not expect much to happen.
In about another two weeks I got a call from the manager saying that it would take more time for them to decide and I was free to look for other opportunities. It’s needless to say that I didn’t expect this call either.
In another fortnight or so, I got a call from the same gentleman and an onsite interview got scheduled with few other persons (director and HR included) and groups along with a presentation from my side.
I went there and presented some slides on what I was doing (process) then and what I did for my graduate thesis. But to my dismay I found that all the interviewers in unison attacked only one point. “That I was from a different industry from theirs”. Although I tried to convince that in these seven years I did have the opportunity to work in three distinct process operations and that it wasn’t at all difficult for me to pick up the strings at the new environment, but I felt they liked to stick to their point, nevertheless (may be they had a candidate selected already)
Isn’t that strange?
Everybody knew what was there on my resume and for God’s sake I had already spoken thrice with the departmental manager before my visit there, on the details of this position.
Anyways, I sent out a thank you letter after the more than three hour interview thanking all of them by name and also expressed my gratitude for the lunch they provided.
It has been almost eight weeks since my interviews (Sept. end), I haven’t heard back from Henkel in spite of follow up email and phone call to the manager with whom I spoke four times in total.
Do we have a name for this sort of culture of not getting back to a candidate with the outcome of an interview in a professional engineering set up?
I applied through college or university. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Henkel (Bowling Green, KY) in Nov 2016
Interview
I first met with Sun representatives at my university's career fair. At the fair, they scheduled an on-campus interview for the following morning. The interview was typical STAR questions with the manager of the position being interviewed for. Friendly, down-to-earth guy.
The interview went well, and a couple of weeks later I was contacted to come to Sun's plant for an interview. They put me in a relatively nice hotel the night before. The day of the interview, there were 4 separate interviews with different individuals. Nothing technical; most questions were personality-based. They gave us lunch and we left. The day was ~8 am-3pm. They told me they would be back with me within a month.
I received an email a couple weeks later informing me that a decision would be made within the next week. The next week, after not hearing back, I followed up to learn that the process had been delayed and the decision could be expected soon. Up to this point, email communications had been thorough and prompt. However, even after sending them several follow-up emails, I never heard back from Sun any further.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me about a time you were faced with a dysfunctional team and what did you do to remedy the problem?
It was a very brief phone interview on my resume and a few behavioral questions. The interviewer didn't seem too personable. I think it lasted for about 10 minutes. About a week later, I received an email that I won't be moving on to the next stage.