I was contacted by a recruiting firm via email about my resume for the position of Sr. Network Engineer. After speaking at length with the recruiter about my skill sets, goals, etc,. I had an interview set up for me within a day. There was no previous contact with the company at all - just the one interview.
The lobby of the building was not what I expected and their waiting area was a zen-like spa atmosphere with, soft music and nice glass displays of the various product lines the company carries. When interview time came, I was greeted by the hiring manager who badged us in to a back office area and taken to a conference room where we were later joined by another technical manager. On the way in I looked around and it was your typical cubical kind of atmosphere - the cubicle partitions were kind of oldish looking because they were tan / taupe colored. Who knows, the rest of the building might be nicer for all I know after seeing that lobby of theirs. When the interview began, they both asked me questions about my tech experience - they did NOT ask me about salary history which was nice. After about 20 or 30 minutes I was handed a 3-4 page test which covered several questions about the various technical aspects which they were most interested in. Areas covered were networking, VMWare, storage, IIS and some other miscellaneous questions that I felt were designed to gauge how I would handle a given situation. i liked the test actually because it was casual and not meant to be intimidating. The two gentlemen that interviewed me were extremely pleasant and down to earth. I had no problem being relaxed in there at all.
During the interview I asked about the culture of the company (having come from a larger corporate culture) and got the sense that this company really took a lot of time to do things for their employees. Things like bowling, going to the movies on occasion, cookouts and other fun activities. I got the sense that they were definitely a people company. Unfortunately, I wasn't chosen for the position but the interview process was quite positive.
