Highly disappointing and surely NOT an egoless environment!
I applied to HelloFresh, Germany. And after careful speculation of more than a month by the company and HR team, I was notified of having the first interview with the HR. I scheduled my interview, and everything was confirmed. I had already started preparing for it. The company's concept, the type of work they do, and being the "Best place to work in 2019 as per employer's choice" attracted me more.
Now, coming to the day for when I had scheduled my interview, there were some climate changes in the city I live, and there were traffic jams and waterlogging everywhere. So, I notified a couple of hours before my scheduled time to the HR that I will try to reach on time and will notify in case I got late. However, I managed to reach sharp on time for my interview. The HR was already present for the call, as she mailed me that I am waiting. I quickly within a second replied that I will be joining in a moment since I was setting up my system to connect with her. Next minute I get a mail, you didn't turn up for the interview, let me know if you are still interested and reschedule it if you want. So basically, the HR hardly waited for 2 minutes despite my constant replies to her and the fact that I had managed to reach home after 2.5 hours for the interview in the extreme weather conditions.
So, later I rescheduled the interview because the company was what I was looking for to work. Now my rescheduled interview day came. The HR was very insensitive and robotic in talking, which I have again never encountered before. A brief discussion her went well. But I still wanted to convey my feelings of the disappointment I had faced the previous week. I agree that HR are really busy people and they have to take multiple interviews, but when a person is constantly in touch and replying swiftly, that should have been considered as well and not be ignored that we didn’t receive your mails (I had sent 4 different emails, how come none of them reached when they were already in my Sent folder). Anyhow, so the moment I raised this concern, I think she didn't like it. And later on, I got a mail that the team has decided not to move forward with you. If the team decided, not to move forward with my application now they shouldn't have proceeded at the first place itself. Because they took a good amount of time to evaluate my application prior to my interview.
I have given tons of interview in Germany and elsewhere and it has never happened to me that I have been rejected just after the first HR round.
So, my question is, does the company expect that the future employees shouldn't raise concerns to them. Despite the company having so many accolades, I believe the face of the company, that is, the HR, should be equally empathetic towards people. The company claims to work in an egoless environment, I doubt that. Now, I already carry a negative image of the company and wouldn’t bother to apply again.