I was contacted by a recruitment consultant for a position with IBM. I was called to their Gurgaon office for a face to face interview (I was working with an org in Delhi then). I reached the IBM campus 20 min before the scheduled time and tried to call the contact person in HR, but she didn't pick up the call. I spoke to the receptionist who had no idea about any interview that day asked me to wait while she called someone in HR. There was no response for the next 45 minutes, as none of the HR folks were there. I waited in the lobby and called up the recruiter and asked him to get in touch with the right person in HR. Finally, after about an hour and 10 minutes, someone in the HR team contacted me and let me in.
They made me sit in one of the cubicles where another developer was working and asked me to fill up a long personal details form. It was the same form I had filled up online as part of their job application requirements. I told the HR person that I was in no mood to spend another 30 min filling up the form since they already had the info with them. I was told that there was some goof-up, and they didn't have access to any forms I had filled up earlier. So I had no choice but to fill up the form again. Once done, the HR guy led me to a meeting room. Since this was supposed to be a face t face interview, I was expecting someone to join me, but 5 min later, I was told that I would be speaking to one of the BU heads in Bangalore over phone. WHAT THE FLIP !!!!
They told me that they had no idea or information about my in-person interview and had somehow arranged for this telephonic call after coordinating with their Bangalore team. This when I had reached their office driving in the crazy morning traffic from Delhi to Gurgaon. I could have taken this call from home and saved me some time and effort. Anyways, the interviewer was courteous and apologetic about the mess up. Interview went well and I came back.
About a week later, I was told that there was a second interview (recruiter told me this time it would be face to face with the Team Head) and I had to attend this at their NOIDA office. I drove down to their NOIDA office, expecting a face to face interview but it again turned out to be a telephonic round since my interviewer was not able to fly down to NOIDA. Fine, there may have been a problem, but least i expected was an update regarding this. Anyways, I spoke to the Team Head over the phone. There were questions related to my projects , process etc...the usual stuff.
No response for a week. Then the consultant calls me and tells me that he got to know (from the recruitment management software which IBM and they use) that I have been offered a position and I have accepted it already. I told him that I had not received any communication/offer from IBM so he should cross check. He did and came back with a screenshot of the application which showed the details of someone else with same name as mine, different skills, different place of joining etc etc. I wasn't surprised at this, having gotten accustomed to the way IBM recruitment worked.
Anyways, about a month after I had given my first interview, IBM folks came back to me with an offer, which I promptly rejected not only because I had better offers from other companies, but also for the totally forgettable experience I had during my interviewing phase. I would like to believe that my experience was an exception. But I was left amazed at the disconnect between various functions at the behemoth that IBM has become.
