Nova Datacom interview questions

A recruiter contacted me via LinkedIn and mentioned they had an opening for a Linux Administrator and thought I would be a good fit for the position. After speaking with the recruiter over the phone, they invited me in for what I thought was to be a one on one interview. It turned out to be the recruiter as well as about 5 other people in the conference room during the interview, and they all asked me questions about my technical background. After the technical interview was completed, we started negotiating over salary and they wanted to offer me quite a bit less than what I was looking for, in fact they were offering far less than the average salary for someone of my skills and qualifications (Red Hat Certified Engineer). After 2 days of back and forth, they finally agreed to pay me what I was looking for. They wanted me to start the following Monday, which would have meant I would have only been able to give my current employer a 2 day notice. After a painful negotiation phase, we finally agreed on 2 weeks.

I was contacted by the hiring manager who got my contact information on LinkedIn. I was gainfully employed at another company and was not in the market but was nonetheless interested to hear about a prospective opportunity. The hiring manager piqued my interest when he described the education reimbursement, excellent benefits, profit sharing and training opportunities. After a brief telephone interview, I agreed to go into the office for a face to face interview. I met with the hiring manager and several subordinates and they grilled me on my technical background. When I started asking about their financials and company stability, they became very tight lipped and basically changed the subject. When I asked about the position I was interviewing for they were incredibly vague. They only thing they told me was that it was for a Database Administration position on a government contract but could not give me any more details. Another thing that seemed strange was that they didn't have a specific date in mind when they needed to fill the position. I left without a follow-up action, but they did mention that they would be in touch. I didn't hear back from them for several weeks and during that time I did additional research into the company. This is when I started to find out about some of the problems other employees were encountering within the company - everything from horrible benefits to limited training options to high turnaround. I started to think they might not get back in touch with me and was actually feeling a little relieved after reading all the poor reviews. I finally received a call from the hiring manager about 3 weeks later. They said they were interested in hiring me but offered me $20k less than what I initially told them I was looking for. We quibbled for several days over salary, and then finally agreed on a number after they agreed to put me through some additional Oracle training programs I was interested in taking. When I asked them to put this in writing to guarantee the training programs as part of my package, things started to sour really quickly. They stated that they don't normally put things like this in writing and training was usually reserved for top performers, and then only after working at the company for a minimum of 1 year. At this point, I told them that it probably wasn't a good fit and the hiring manager became irate. He said they had already submitted my resume to the customer when they were bidding on the contract and said I was putting them in a very bad position because they might be in default of the contract if I didn't accept the position. He became very rude and told me I had wasted their time, etc. Needless to say I left without accepting the position. About a week later they called me back, stating that they would put the training I had requested in writing as part of the overall compensation package, but by this time I had such a bad taste in my mouth I told them I wasn't interested.