I sent an unsolicited application for "product development," highlighting my knowledge of studying the user in virtual reality. I mentioned nothing about programming skills. Though I can code alright, if you want my Ph.D. level knowledge you have to be interested in my psychology and user testing background.
They sent me an email asking me to complete an online programming test. I was surprised, given that I never claimed to be a coder, but I did it for fun. I think I did very well on it and they invited me for an interview. Before going, I asked for a description of the job for which I was being considered. This did involve software engineering, but they also stressed an interest in many other skills more related to my graduate work (psychology, statistical analysis, scripting, project management, etc.).
They paid for my travel expenses and a one-night stay in Teltow. The interview lasted about 3 hours and there were mainly coding questions. I did OK, for somebody who comes from a CS background, but doesn't code every day. They were friendly and helped me through any questions that I didn't know. Mostly I had trouble on ones that required specific knowledge of things like how the C++ preprocessor handled corner cases. They told me they would get back to me within a week, but really it took several weeks. Finally they said they wanted a second interview.
Here is where the process got really incompetent. At some point, they had decided that I'd be better for either a UX (which hadn't yet been created) or training role instead of product development. This was basically fine with me but they never told me that before the interview. So when asked questions about what I expected to do at SMI, I gave the correct answer for the previous job description, but that was now incorrect. The managing director was really hard on me all because they never really told me what job I was interviewing for. I left the interview unsure if I even wanted a job if they were to offer it. I had no concrete idea even on leaving what the duties would be for the job I was apparently interviewing for.
A few days later they sent me a rejection email, which was also very incompetent. It was clearly a template. They acted as if I had never even visited, saying, "We have received a lot of applications for the offered position and it is not easy for us to make a decision. We would like to inform you that we will not take your application to our shortlist." First of all, my application was unsolicited so there was no offered position. Second, they didn't even know which position they wanted me for. Third, I would hope that anybody who had been invited to Teltow twice would already be on the short list. It's probably a good thing I didn't get the job. However, they did reimburse me promptly after both trips.
