Had 2 interviews with 2 different departments simultaneously. Department 1: interview with 1 IT lead and 1 HR. Highly disappointing, IT lead attitude was too arrogant. He was crossing his arms most of the time. At his level, he should realize that he’s also the company’s ambassador on an interview process. He questioned my experience with different technologies in a condescending tone, as if he didn’t believe what I mentioned. Why didn’t he just ask a more technical question then if he wanted to test? His questions were vague. He also seemed to not be interested from the beginning of the interview because he was distracted and basically listening to someone else in the room! (I assumed he was in a public work area because i can hear people chatting since he forgot to mute his headset and at some point he take his headset off one ear). When it was my turn to ask questions, I ask questions about the team because the job posting was basically too vague. Even his team’s department was in abbreviation. He immediately became defensive and answered “why didnt you google that?”. Well I’m very sure HE didnt, because there are tons of things with that abbreviation. Honestly, I cant believe this guy is on a managerial level. He definitely needs trainings! If he really didn’t want to interview me from the beginning, he should have not invited me for an interview. Or if he’s being forced to by the recruiter, dont project his annoyance on me. It’s a waste of everyone’s time. I immediately withdrew my application after. No way I’m going to have him as my manager. No thank you.
Department 2: A bit better. The first interview was with an IT lead and a Scrum Master. Honestly this one went very well. Great attitude and professionalism from both people. I had a good feeling and, at least for Rabobank, these people neutralized the impression I had from Dept 1 and gave me a good impression of the company/company’s culture (“oh, maybe it’s just Dept 1 that has people with bad attitude”… or so I thought). I received second interview from Dept 2, this time with a different Scrum Master and a Product Owner. Boy oh boy was this a 180 degree different from the first interview. The first question was of course the legendary “Why do you want to leave your current company?”. I’m not even exaggerating that they drilled me for just that one question. Like having a 5 whys just on this topic. Smh. Dont these guys read the news? They work in a bank. There’s a high inflation. People are looking for a better opportunity to tackle it. I kept my ground though. Staying professional, but in my head my impression is decreasing. This time around, the scrum master just all talk and didn’t listen to my answer. Honestly, already a huge red flag. I was so frustrated by the know-it-all scrum master because he just doesnt understand IT processes or good engineering practice (well he did say in the beginning of the interview he only cares about functional stuffs not the IT stuffs). The whole interview was like an interrogation. Like they didnt believe my answers. (Again, this can be tackled by technical questions in my opinion). Compared to Dept 1,I think Scrum Master just over acted his attitude. Product Owner’s attitude was much more professional. His face was in horror when he heard his scrum master colleague said a swear word in the beginning of the interview. Poor guy, he tried to defuse his colleague’s out of line attitude a few times. In the end Product Owner even tried to ask questions that are hinting that they like me (or their IT colleagues at least). But in the end of the interview I already made up my mind. My impression was not good. Too bad though, i really liked the the people from the first interview. So in the end, I withdrew my application again.
Feedback from my side to Rabobank: train your employees on how to give interviews. Job interviews go both ways. It also gives a huge impression on the company and the management.