I first received a call from what was obviously a call center. The caller talked up the opportunity, took my salary requirements (this is important). And then assured me I'd be interviewing for a position within the tolerances of my requirements.
What followed were three phone screens and an in person spread out over the following four weeks.
The first "Skills Level 1" was a technical interview, though not a terribly in-depth one. I assumed this was the smoke test. The usual fluff questions you expect for the most junior of assessments. "Whats the difference between a stringbuilder and a string?", "What are the four principles of Object Oriented Programming?". These questions should tell the observer more about the interviewer than the interviewee. But that's all I'll say about that.
"Skills Level 2" was a little about development methodology. We talked about Scrum and managing people and how I'd run projects in the past. Actually this interview was pretty decent. It reminded me of how I interview candidates so maybe I'm biased. But it wasn't a vocabulary test it was an actual assessment of applied knowledge. Kudos to this interviewer.
At this point I get a call from a woman in HR. She's clearly a cheerleader for Avanade. She dropped what were clearly corporate buzzwords as much as possible. She asked weird questions like "Have you found the people you've spoken with to be 'passionate' developers?"
She droned on about herself mostly. About how much she'd brought to Avanade and how great her performance as a recruiter had been and how much money she was making for Avanade etc. This is really where I started to get a metallic taste in my mouth about the whole experience.
"Skills Level 3" was a little more of the same. These were cultural fit questions. As with level 1 and level 2 the travel requirement was stressed. No new ground was really covered here.
Before the next interview I get a call from the cheerleader again. This time she's talking with almost cultish admiration about my next interviewer. She insists that I study his linked in profile, that I'll be blown away by the guy's amazing credentials etc. It was pretty creepy.
And finally the "in person" (Which was done via teleconference). This was more of the cultural fit. Basically it was designed to see how I handled conversational interaction. I talked with the VP of a division. Nice guy. Really. Easy to talk to no problems there.
Here's where the nonsense started.
I get a call from cheerleader. Only this time she's not chipper. She's affected a concerned voice. You see after this most recent interview they were planning the conference call where all my previous interviewers would discuss my leveling at Avanade and they were concerned that I'd level at a rank lower than the range I'd given four weeks ago. I'd played this game before. I told her I was firm. She didn't like it and implied that I probably wouldn't get an offer. I let her go.
A few hours later I got another call from cheerleader. Wouldn't you know it, they hadn't made a decision yet. But if I could just come a little lower on my range I'd probably get an offer. I indicated again that I was firm. That my salary expectations shouldn't have been a surprise to her, they've been the same for four weeks.
She then tried to play head games. Implying that I just wasn't ready to work for a company like Avanade. That I should be honored to take such a significant paycut to work there. That if I was serious about my career I'd see it was a great offer etc.
The offer finally came the next morning. And it was considerably lower than my lowest estimate. When I turned the offer down I was given a rather pithy and condescending reply once more suggesting that I just wasn't ready to play with the big boys.
