two virtual interviews and one in person. Each interview was about 30 minutes . They had a panel of three people asking questions. It was casual and friendly. They were looking for diversity and to have work at the company
I applied online. The process took 8 weeks. I interviewed at BASF (Research Triangle Park, NC) in Aug 2017
Interview
After learning about the HR restructuring in the company late 16 early 17, there were numerous HR positions that were posted, initially believing a clean sweep was done. It's not uncommon for very large companies to do this if the business is preparing for major changes either organic or M&A. So I applied for at least 31 reqs (ones that at face value matched up with my years of experience working in HR Corporate/HR Operations and HR Manufacturing.
After 6 weeks, I heard and spoke to two outsourced company representatives that seemed to be stressed and rightly so ( IBM Talent Acquisition Optimization)
After two "pre-screens" discussions and two HireVue (Skype) 15 minute video Q&A scenario questions, a few more weeks went by and was contacted by them to fly up to the upper Midwest for a role I was very interested in my home state (Southeast). A little weird why a company spends money on hotel, car and flight when I'm in the backyard but hey, whatever.
I also had to prepare a 5 page power point slide presentation on two fictitious HR scenarios as part of this onsite interview panel. The "chemistry" I felt was excellent, probably one of the best interview experiences I had. I wasn't nervous. displayed confidence, competency in my presentation and answered all questions in STAR format.
The sinking feeling hit home when I learned toward the end of the interview, not all requisitions were truly real, given internals were moving around within the company so presumably requisitions were developed to serve as the infamous paper trail and to show EEO metrics of internal to external hires.
The other interview was in NC and truly a waist of company money. Spending 3/4's of the day in airports for a 1 hour interview could have been more efficient by Skype. One of the panel members didn't even show up and the atmosphere wasn't as "welcoming" and I'll leave it at that.
So after 4 days straight of traveling for this company, I got a 0 burger and they received probably some of the best intellectual HR information from someone with Fortune 100 Mfg HR experience to use for their use.
Advice to HR Leadership: My perception only is your leaders have waisted my time, company travel budget and built up false hope ( I'll own that one). Apparently you all had no intention of hiring externals for many if not most of these coveted roles for those of us unemployed / underemployed who are highly capable competent professionals . This speaks volumes to your company HR branding. However it is 2017 and BASF proves they cannot differentiate themselves from other large fish, nothing but the last four digits of a SS #.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
All STAR Q&A's!s so if you want to make it to the airport, give Situation Task Action Result answers.
All I can assume is that they dont have their act together at all in their Talent Acquisition department. Constantly have roles open that they cant seem to fill either by contract or perm and dont follow up with candidates as to their interview status.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Spoke with several internal Talent Acquisition employees and had good conversations. We were supposed to go to the next steps. Then there was no follow up after checking in by both email and VM. You would think a large company like BASF would be able to manage the recruiting process more professionally.