2024-07-04 The hiring manager made a presentation on a webinar titled "How to get a Python Developer Job". During the presentation they mentioned that they had recently moved from a contractor role to a permanent position at AA. I reached out to them on LinkedIn with follow-up questions about the presentation. 2024-07-05 They pointed out an open position they were hiring for by sharing a link to an ad. 2024-07-07 After preparing an application letter I tried to apply, but the "Apply" button on the ad did not work. The due date had not passed yet. I sent the application letter directly to the hiring manager, pointing out that the website was broken. 2024-07-09 They sent me a different link to submit application, which I did. 2024-07-16 I received a call from AA's HR and was invited for a technical interview. 2024-07-18 The technical interview 1:1 with the hiring manager was 1 hour long Teams call. The assignment was about randomly pairing elements from two lists into a list of tuples. During the chat the hiring manager said that AA are moving from employing contractors to permanent employees to retain knowledge within the company. Later that same day I received an email from HR saying that the hiring manager "has passed on some very positive feedback". HR informed me that: "[they] would like to progress [my] application to the final interview stage. This will be arranged in due course. In the meantime [they] have an assessment for [me] to complete – this is a non technical assessment that all potential employees take." 2024-07-19 to 2024-07-22 I received emails with links to four online 'psychometric assessments' via integratezone.com portal. These were: 1) SHL OPQ - Occupational Personality Questionnaire is a series of three statements about your personality. Each triplet had to be ranked from most to least pertinent to myself. Takes about 45 minutes to complete. 2) EQI 2.0 (Int) - Emotional Quotient Inventory 2.0 via jvrafricagroup.co.za is over a hundred questions to be answered on a strongly disagree to strongly agree scale. Takes about 30 minutes to complete. 3) HDS (International) - Hogan Development Survey is a test that predicts reaction in high stress situations. It is a mix of timed mathematical, verbal and reasoning questions, and some statements about personality that have to be answered as either true or false or on an agree-disagree scale. Takes about 20 minutes to complete. 4) MCPA Scan via bioss.co.za is a grueling series of questions that require essay-like responses about yourself, adhering to a minimum word count. It is highly ambiguous - it is intentionally designed to be highly ambiguous in order to "assess the individual's ability to handle ambiguity and uncertainty". Which to my mind only makes the process borderline unethical and the results highly interpretable and thus useless. It is supposed to take 2.5 hours and has to be completed in one sitting. The assessment is not timed. It took me more than 4 hours to complete it. Before the assessment BIOSS checks if you have taken this assessment before. The check takes them two days. After the assessment the data is retained for at least five years during which the previous results would be used, if anyone wanted you to take the test again. The assessment websites had bugs that I reported back to AA's HR. 2024-07-23 I was invited by the HR for an interview with the 2nd up manager and another HR representative. 2024-07-29 I had the interview, which was just a general chat about past experiences. The manager confirmed that AA were looking to transition to permanent workers, saying that they have been brought in specifically to implement that transition. Btw, HR said they have no dental coverage at all, 2024-08-02(Friday) to 2024-08-05 (Monday) There was a mini market crash across the globe. FTSE100 fell straight down by 360points/4.3% (AA are FTSE constituent). 2024-08-06 Received a call from HR informing me that they will not extend an offer because "the skills are not to the level that we are looking for". I asked if they are hiring someone else. The response was: "Yes, probably, eventually, there are no immediate plans." 2024-08-13 I sent a GDPR request for my data to be removed from the records of all 3rd party organisations that administered 'psychometric assessments'. After several follow-ups and repeated requests, 18 emails later data removal was confirmed to be complete on 2024-10-02. Take from this what you will. In either case "some very positive feedback from the hiring manager" and "the skills are not to the level that we are looking for" cannot both be true at the same time. Either they lied at some point, or are just capricious about what they want, with little regard to other people's time and effort. But my guess would be that they talk a good game, they may even want to "have their own people", but the moment markets get scary, they knee-jerk into saving on the workforce.