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      Senior Java API Engineer Interview

      19 Sept 2017
      Anonymous interview candidate
      London, England
      No offer
      Negative experience
      Difficult interview

      Application

      I applied online. I interviewed at PPL (London, England) in Aug 2017

      Interview

      Most unprofessional handling of recruitment process I have ever encountered. If you are thinking about applying for a job with PPL - my advice to you would be to put your precious time and work into an application with another company. Here is why... - Contacted by hiring manager. Had telephone interview with hiring manager, invited in for face-to-face, so far so good. - Came in for face-to-face interview. Reasonable level of difficulty - technical test followed by Q&A grilling. Gave it my best shot and felt like I had made a strong effort. - Very next day, this is confirmed by the internal recruitment coordinator over the phone, who informs me that the manager thought it went well, and wishes to make me an offer. However, due to some poor scheduling, the hiring manager and his manager are now out of the office on holidays for the next week and a half, and they cannot make the offer official until they have a budget conversation when they are both back. This already feels like a horrible position for me to be put in, but fair enough I think, these things happen from time to time, so I hold on (meanwhile moving other job applications forward, so as to not be foolish). - It gets to one day after both managers are supposed to have been back from holidays and had their meeting. No contact received, so I drop an email, and I am informed that the meeting should be happening that day. Internal recruiter tells me he will be in touch with me first thing the next morning. No phone call the next morning so I call at the end of the day and leave a voicemail. - Another two days pass by, no contact - It's now the following week so I decide to get in touch with the hiring manager directly via the website through which I applied, nothing to lose. To my surprise he responds apologetically, again keeping me hanging by saying he wants to bring me on board, but is still waiting to have the budget meeting - should be by end of the week - tells me I will hear from them either way. Well it's now a week later since that message - one day off a month since I was told they want to make me an offer - and still nothing! Meanwhile I went for a face-to-face with another company last week, half an hour after I walked out of the interview they called me to make me an offer. The very next day they sent me the contract! The polar opposite of the PPL experience and a breath of fresh air by comparison- respectful, professional, prompt and direct. If this is how PPL run their recruitment process, leaving candidates hanging on their words for one month - I dread to think how they run their internal processes and treat their employees?! This was a horrible experience, within one of the more challenging periods you go through in life (job-hunting and interviews), which knocked my confidence and drove me a bit mad. Looking back, I'm just glad I picked up on what are sure to be some serious problems for employees at PPL - before starting any employment with them - so I know to avoid them at all costs! There is really no excuse for treating candidates like this. You invest time and effort in applying for the job and you deserve to be dealt with respectfully. Recruitment 101 - don't mention any offer unless you are truly ready to make it and you are able to back it up in writing! Poor reflection on your company and bad karma generated. In summary - avoid!

      Interview questions [7]

      Question 1

      Java 8 - Lambdas, Collections.
      Answer question

      Question 2

      Technical test (face-to-face) - build a Spring Boot RESTful web service that stores search strings and verifies if a search string exists in the application. Add dynamic reloading. Turn search string storage into ElasticSearch cluster & client.
      Answer question

      Question 3

      2 bad things about you your previous colleagues would say
      Answer question

      Question 4

      2 good things about you your previous colleagues would say
      Answer question

      Question 5

      A time when you said something at work that other people didn't like / disagreed with
      Answer question

      Question 6

      A time when you messed something up
      Answer question

      Question 7

      Your proudest project / piece of work
      Answer question

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