Applied online. In 3 weeks received a call from the HR inviting me for an interview. The location of Tata Steels Netherlands is far flung and the HR doesn’t offer any financial compensation at all unlike other companies that I have interviewed for like Dow Chemicals or Shell etc. Anyway, the office looks like a 18th century governmental organization with leaking roofs, no one sitting at the reception (if that hole can be called as a reception). You must find your own way through this bunker, call the HR so that someone can come and pick you up. Reserve an extra 30 mins for this. The interview has absolutely no structure at all. The first round is with an HR person and the team lead. They ask you completely random questions like what do you think the job responsibilities are? Is that a joke? That is something that I as a candidate expect from them to tell me. Wouldn’t you be disappointed working for an Indian based company? What a question!! Takes about an hour of absolute randomness, sitting in a dark, smelly, under constructed office and chatting about stuff nowhere related to the job posted.
The second round was with the same team lead and the line manager. No surprises here as well. No one at reception, leaking roofs, dirty and 18th century toilets, spending 20 mins to call someone to pick me up. The Line Manager was even more lost, it was pretty evident that he had googled a set of 10 interview questions and put them on the plate. Why Tata Steels? 5 year goal? Previous experience within Steel industry (hello, haven’t you read my CV?), Conflict, etc. etc.
All in all, I was promised that I will hear from them in a week. Of course, I didn’t. I had to call them 10 times to follow up and each time I was told that the HR lady will call me back but of course she didn’t for a month. And then one day she calls me up and says sorry you aren’t selected because you don’t have Steel experience. I busted into laughter. Like seriously guys, I have no steel industry experience is evident from my CV, why waste my money and time unnecessarily then? Anyway, after the first impressions of the office space and randomness and lost people, I was very disappointed.
