I had two onsite interviews with GenapSys. In both instances the interview sessions were sprung on me in a surprising way. I was lead to believe I would be going to their offices for a reason other than interviewing and given no information about what to expect or the positions I was being considered for. In general all communication with HR was very obtuse. Some of the interviewers were very nice, but on the second visit the interviewers were incredibly rude and did not treat me well. They were openly disrespectful and insulting. These issues were a huge red flag, It leads me to believe this company could be very dysfunctional and a hostile work environment.
After the first onsite interview I was told that if they are interested in a candidate, I would be brought back in for meeting with the team I would be working with and the CEO.
The following day I received an email from the head of HR asking for my availability to arrange a meeting with team members and the CEO and founder. This was very positive and I replied with my availability immediately. My email went unanswered for 5 days and required a second email sending my availability again before I was able to set up this visit.
The day I arrived for the follow-up I was again taken to a glass-walled conference room, offered a beverage and instructed to wait for my first interviewer. This took me by surprise as I was told this visit was to meet the team and CEO, The office manager left quickly and I was unable to get any clarification. After roughly 15 minutes of sitting and waiting while employees walked by looking at me (the zoo effect) an engineer entered the room. He introduced himself, name and title, sat down and opened a folder which contained a copy of my resume and the description of a job I had not applied for and was not interested in. He spent a minute or so looking over my resume and then asked very terse technical questions with no context and seemingly unrelated to the job or my experience. This was very unsettling and I did my best to answer but it was very difficult as he simply stared at me emotionless the entire time as if he had no interest in being there. As soon as I started talking he would look at his watch, my resume, or some other place in the room, giving me the indication that he was not listening. After I finished my answer he would pause for and then ask another completely different technical question unrelated to the last only to turn back to his watch again.
As a scientist I have experience with the US Dept. of Energy. Somewhere in the middle of the questioning he asked, “What is your experience with DOE?” After a few minutes of me explaining this experience, he interrupted my answer to the question stating, “you don’t know what DOE is, I will explain it to you, listen and you might learn something”. While he explained DOE to me it became painfully clear that he was describing the engineering term Design Of Experiments (DOE) and not the US Dept. of Energy. Then immediately following this he dove into another question unrelated question.
This process went on for 30 min and at the end he said he was done, stood up and left the room to find the next interviewer. I was not thanked and he did not give me any contact information.
The next interviewer was also an engineer, his style was a bit more conversational but still very outwardly judgmental and rude. Again he introduced himself with a name and title. He asked a few technical questions which were somewhat related to the role that I was seemingly being interviewed for and some follow-ups to those. He then asked me to describe the work had I done for my doctoral thesis. I began with a short science intro to cover the project’s background, but in the middle of this he stopped me, “wait, is this going to take much time because I really don’t care about this, just tell me about the engineering”. His questioning went to the end of the the 30 min and he didn’t allow me any time to ask questions. He also left without a thanking me or giving any contact info.
After one more similar, but less extreme, interviews I was walked out. There was never any discussion of meeting with the CEO or HR as I was expecting from previous communication, it was all very confusing.
More than a month had passed since the follow-up visit and I had not heard back from HR or any other employees from the company. Given the dysfunctional nature I observed, I withdrew my candidacy at this company via an email that was confirmed by HR.