I applied online. The process took 6 months. I interviewed at Merck (West Point, PA)
Interview
The overall process in one word would be described as - cumbersome.
First step was the online application(~15m), about 1.5 month turnaround to find out I progressed to the face to face round robin (5 person) interview. I was told someone would reach out to me to inform me of details, this never occurred. Interview team started late, when one person would exit the room, 10-15m later another would enter. Each person held a 30-60m interview (individually, each interviewer was well prepared and very easy to talk to). Interview lasted ~4-5hrs. I heard nothing for nearly 6 months, then while on vacation got a random call from HR. HR personnel followed up (2-3 days) with an email, this turnaround was consistent with every email I sent for negotiations. After I received an offer, negotiations took ~3-4 weeks, with what could have taken 1-1.5 weeks with appropriate response time (the dates written on each offer showed the document had been revised and made into a PDF the same days I replied to emails). All-in-all, the entire interview to job offer took nearly 6 months. During this time I went through several other phone screening and face to face interviews to offers, which had taken 1-3 weeks in comparison; from equally large global companies.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
-Run me through your resume
-How are you in an union environment
-How do you work under pressure
-How is your demeanor under pressure
-Name a time you had to pull team support for a project or to overcome an obstacle
-Name a time you had to lead a multi-departmental team
-How do you cope with off shift work?
-Tell me about yourself
-Why managing?
-Where do you see yourself in 5 years
-What do you do when you're not working?
I applied online. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Merck (Philadelphia, PA) in Nov 2011
Interview
Four and a half hours of Interviews with four people related to the area and 30 minutes with the Human Resource person. It took a while to get through the security at the front, so arrive early. Everyone was friendly and more casual then I expected.