I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Parexel (Berlin) in Nov 2014
Interview
I applied online. Got first phone call within a week. The question on th ephone were asked by a recruiting hiring company and were more related to the job desdcription and work done so far. Then after a week got a call for a face to face interview. The questions in the interview were experience based and competency and behaviour related to your profile. It was a very open ended and healthy conversation in the interview. Narrated most of the case examples of my career.
My interview experience was one of the worst I’ve encountered. The process involved over 5 rounds, which felt unnecessary and dragged out. By the time I reached the final stages, I was left wondering if it was worth the time invested. The most frustrating part occurred during one of the later rounds. Throughout the meeting, the interviewers kept turning their cameras on and off at random moments. This was incredibly distracting and unprofessional. I couldn’t tell if it was intentional or technical, but it made it hard to focus on the conversation. It also gave me the impression that the team wasn’t fully engaged or respectful of my time. Overall, the experience was disorganized and left me with a poor impression of the company.
This interview takes the crown for the worst experience I've ever had
Without a doubt, this was the worst interview (phone screening) I've ever done.
I interviewed for a Product Manager position. The recruiter clearly had zero idea how the tech industry works, and asked questions that were just not valid questions. For example, the recruiter asked "How good are you at using S.a.a.S?" They said every letter of SaaS one by one. Now, they could have meant the program SAS, but I asked to clarify, and the recruiter again said "S.a.a.S."
I responded to the question assuming they were really asking something along the lines of "do you have experience as a product manager on SaaS products?", but again, the recruiter seemed like they had no idea what they were even asking. They constantly asked me to repeat things over and over again, I could tell they were taking notes and typing everything I was saying word for word.
They also asked the same question 3 times, worded in different ways:
- Why are you looking for a job right now and what made you leave your previous company?
- Why did you leave all of your previous companies? (they literally made me provide a reason for every company on my resume)
- Why did you leave your most recent company?
At some point, towards the middle of the interview, I just lost interest in taking this opportunity seriously. I felt like I was talking to a transcriber who had zero interest in explaining what the opportunity was about and why Paraxel would be a great company to join. The recruiter seemed like they were hired just to take notes and forward them to the hiring manager, with zero training on tech and their industry.
Fast, two rounds. One with HR more focus on job description and interests, second with directors more on get to know each other, how a typical day looks like, experience in PM aspects. Decision came within a couple weeks.