Phone screen with a recruiter was standard. I was then brought in for a cattle call interview. I was in a massive room with easily 75 other applicants. We sat at tables and after 30 minutes the interviewers rotated seats, so I had conversations with three different interviewers.
The questions were pretty basic, nothing tricky.
My issue was with their process. It was supposed to be 30 minutes for each of 3 interviews. The first round went over, lasting about 45 minutes. Interviewer #1 stopped asking me questions after 30 minutes, saying "The lead facilitator is going to ring the gong at any moment and I'd hate to cut you off in the middle of an answer." So we had about 15 minutes of small talk. Then, Interviewer #2 came, and stopped asking me questions after 15 minutes. She said she wasn't sure if the time that they went over on the first round was going to be deducted from the second round, and similarly didn't want to cut me off in the middle of a response. So we only got two questions in, followed by about 20 minutes of small talk. Interviewer #3 similar.
So that was really poor facilitation. At the end, they herded us all into a side room and the lead facilitator stood up and said "Here at Booz Allen we appreciate 360 feedback. Tell us what went well from your perspective and what we could have done better?" So of course, several candidates spoke up about how great the interview process was. I then raised my hand and was honest. I said the structure seemed to make sense, but the execution could be improved by either sticking to the 30 minute time frame or communicating any adjustments in time between rounds if one goes over, so that interviewers know how long they have to ask questions. The guy then shifts into complete defensive mode, "well I don't want to cut great conversations short just because of an arbitrary time window, we value flexibility."
Yeah, OK. So because you personally were having a captivating conversation, everyone else's sense of instructions should be tossed. I knew at that point I had just shot my chances in the foot, but it also lent insight into the company. If you can't accept and consider valid criticism about the interview process, you can't be that great to work for.
