I attended 6 interviews total with HCL during 1-month. So I think my review will be very much helpful to people applying to HCL in 2022. So please refer & ensure that your time's not wasted. You can use that time to interview with other companies & get a much better offer.
1) Telephonic screening: Multiple recruiters from different locations contact & process your profile simultaneously. No restriction to interview with multiple teams. But they have no idea for which project/domain they are hiring for. I specified that I prefer normal 9-6 shift, but still they processed me for US-shift, coz interviewer specifically kept asking if I'm OK for it.
2) First Technical Round: Meeting will be recorded. Interviewer was not project specific person. So he did not reveal for which project/domain I'll be hired for. Pretty easy round - generic questions & programming.
3) 2nd Round: May/may not happen. Still the recruiter didn't have any idea which project/domain. If this round doesn't happen, then you'll be contacted by HR. They ask for your expectation & documents for ID verification. After this no contact. I called them back after 3 weeks. Still they were saying they're awaiting approval. I was an immediate joiner. Usually companies complete the process for immediate joiners quickly in 1-2 days, so that they dont lose the candidate & hiring cost/time. But here its so messed up.
I went through this process 6 times in 1month, and they never processed an offer. Overall experience: WORST, very poor compared to any other MNC/mid-sized companies. Felt like I could have utilized that time for another company & cracked a better offer in that time. Main issues I faced are-
1) Hiring process is so messed up, & seems like they're not interested in onboarding good candidates. No offer was released after positive feedback from interviewers. They kept rescheduling 2nd round at last minute - Without checking my convenience on call, they mailed a new preponed meeting invite half-hour before the new time. When I missed it, they pushed the blame on me & lied that they tried calling me & I didn't pickup. No respect for candidate's time/effort.
2) Salary negotiation - way below market standard & experience. Even if I compromised & agreed for 1lakh below my expectation, they didn't process any offer or contact me ever again.
3) No Privacy/Confidentiality disclaimer for maintaining my documents like Aadhar, PAN, previous payslips, offer, educational certificates - which I sent for ID verification to two HR people from different locations. In fact, their request mails said "Public". So God knows if they maintain privacy at all.
4) They claim that its "skill-based" hiring and not "project-specific" hiring, which is a bull-shit reason to hire only desperate candidates at low cost.
5) Each interviewer asks same technical questions & interviews are recorded. So if its "skill-based" hiring, these recordings must be circulated & referred by hiring managers, right! But no - multiple recruiters keep scheduling interviews saying its for a different project, and when I ask which project, they don't know or say interviewer will reveal. So basically No Transparency & it looks like recruiters are trying to hit some target for interview-scheduling. Total waste of candidate's time!