I went through four rounds of interviews and was even informed that I had been provisionally selected. However, the final stage of the process was disappointing due to the way salary negotiations were handled. The HR representative appeared to take the negotiation personally and, in my view, did not represent my case fairly to the management. After the final interview, he stated that my initially quoted salary expectation had been “misheard” and proceeded to offer a significantly lower figure. Despite multiple attempts to discuss and align on a reasonable number, there was no flexibility shown. Instead, I was informed that the management was “not liking my attitude,” and my candidacy was dropped. It seemed like that the HR portrayed my image negatively to the management. He refused to even connect me to any other line manager, or any other person from the team and was my only POC and felt like the negotiations were handled personally and not professionally. Additionally, I was asked to submit all my personal documents before any formal written offer was shared, and compensation details were only communicated verbally rather than over email. They were too scared that the candidate might take offer on offer and because of this were willing to let go of the candidates that are genuinely interested. I have never witnessed this kind of behaviour from any other company and would not expect especially from a company like barclays. Overall, after investing significant time and effort across multiple interview rounds—often scheduled at short notice (like a day before an in-office face to face interview) and requiring reprioritization of my existing work commitments, the outcome seemed to depend more on the HR’s discretion than on actual merit.

The first stage in the interview process was an assignment, where I was asked to make a report on a company, their covenant analysis, business strategy, financial analysis and things of these nature.