Envié una solicitud electrónica. Acudí a una entrevista en Macrogen en oct 2020
Sin oferta
Experiencia negativa
Entrevista normal
Solicitud
Envié una solicitud electrónica. El proceso duró 1 semana. Acudí a una entrevista en Macrogen (Arlington, VA) en mar 2019
Entrevista
Short, 15 min. In Korean.
It was rather unusual setting for an interview since it was conducted in Korean.
The person in charge of the interview was quite pompous and I felt quite disrespected.
It was a 3-interview process: 1 with a coworker (in the future-to-be team) and 2 with a higher-up. I passed all of them, and then the process followed a negotiation over email.
Honestly the first interview with the technician of the team was okay: he was a pretty chill korean guy, very kind and well spoken. On the other hand, the ones with higher-up were the opposite: he was not fluent in english, barely could make himself understood; he did not seem to know much about the actual science/technologies at hand; he asked very personal questions with a malicious background (e.g. are you planning to get pregnant?); etc.
And the follow-up through email was even worse: they did not respect the clear salary expectations that I set during the first rounds of interview, by a big difference. After declining their first offer, and only then, they rose, without even meeting my declared expectations. I as a foreigner had to inform them of the advantages of the Dutch tax system depending on the salary brackets (i.e. 30% rule).
With all of that said, that was not the worst. That was when I was given the draft contract, where 3/10 pages very ambiguously described your rights as a worker, but 7/10 clearly specified your duties and penalties if not met. The contract was a complete mess: no collective working agreement supporting it; specified that employer could basically do anything they wanted, even modifying unilaterally your contract; forbid you to do lots of things (e.g. do any trade in your free-time); made it clear you couldn't work for any other company but theirs after for 2 years until your contract ended; and those are only a few I listed. I am convinced that MACROGEN contracts violate european workers' laws, which would render their contract wet paper upon any lawsuit.
And the funniest thing is that they were surprised when I highlighted all these issues in their contract and declined the offer. To put it short, the higher up claimed that "trust is more important than wording, especially when a new employee and employer start together. ". Outrageous. Stay away from it, everyone.