Oh boy. Nice dev team but the process was dull. The HR recruiter was absurd and punching above his weight. Started with their recruiter contacting me and talking about Blackberry like they’re about to make a huge comeback. I thought ok let’s see what their about. It turns out their role is pretty much what I was doing in a previous job, but the recruiter hadn’t spotted that. Ex recruitment agency maybe lol? First round was a telephone interview with an incredibly polite developer. This went ok but lasted far too long which meant I was late for work. It was supposed to be 30-45 mins but took about 1 hour 15 mins. I was not impressed since it left no time for me to ask questions and meant I had to walk in late at work. The next day I got an email from HR saying they couldn’t get through to me for my interview and asking if I wanted to rearrange. Goodness me, that’s not good news to hear! I was surprised that they later invited me to the in-house interview. The day before the interview the HR guy got in touch saying he wants to change their process and instead of me taking a test at their office he wants me to do it in my own time instead. For goodness sake, Blackberry, you have no business burning through a candidates time. Anyway, they sent a Word document over that night which asked for short answers to a variety of questions. Nothing difficult and no coding. It seemed like a stupid thing to do because these things would have been better off being interview questions instead and then they could’ve been expanded on in the interview. The HR guy was at the interview and asked a couple of basic questions that sounded like they’re from a 90’s interviewing book. “Tell me about a time you had to listen to criticism from someone...” and “how would your manager describe you?”. He took these questions very seriously. The good bit was next which was with the dev team. Three of them sat around a table asking me random questions from my CV and about what I’ve done in the past. No coding, no problem solving although a bit dull to be honest, and it lasted a long time. I got the impression after about 20 mins that they weren’t interested and were just going through the motions, but it lasted almost two hours none the less. I felt the same. They’re nice guys and I didn’t feel pressured in the interview. They are looking for someone based on fit from what I could tell, which is fine but I don’t think it should’ve taken that long. The HR guy then showed me the office which took about 20 seconds. It was small and cramped with a lot of desk fans around so I’m guessing it is not a nice place to work in the summer. Then I was out the door. Cheers thanks. Although he said I’d hear back on the Monday, he didn’t get back to me for two weeks then out of the blue he sent me an email saying he’s got feedback and wants to know if I’m free to talk through it the next day. Not all that interested, but I replied asking for the feedback in advance. He didn’t reply for a couple of days then I got another email saying there was an escalation that required his full attention. I guess he’s important, don’t you know. He also said he prefers to give feedback over the phone so I laughed one more time and ignored the guy. Overall a medium to low quality candidate experience mainly because of the recruiter. If you’re a fit, you’ll like the dev team though.

The interview included two parts. One is you need to finish 2 projects, which are 2 tech questions, using your spare time. Then you could send back your answer to the company. Then during the interview, the interviewers will talk with you about your projects.