They're professionals who did do a thorough set of interviews, but the process is marred because of "big company politics". Abbott is a giant multinational corporation, so you can expect to have 5 or 6 phases in the interview process before you can even get a contract position with them nowadays. Out of the many companies I interviewed with, Abbott was the only one who offered to reimburse the costs of driving to their Ottawa facility, so that is one plus.
The several sets of interviews I had with them were conducted by technical staff who would be relevant to the position I was applying. Unfortunately, this was actually really bad because I was not easily able to get in contact with an HR person who had the details of the salary, type of benefits, etc. All of the technical people I spoke kept saying, "I don't know that, you'll need to ask the next person in the interview process," then I go speak with the next interviewer in the interview process to hear, "That's weird, I don't have that information, the person you spoke with preciously has that information," and a whole bunch of rigmarole.
The questions were purely behavioral-type questions. No technical questions were asked at all.
I actually got very far in Abbott's interview process without having details of the salary, so I ended up calling their Ottawa location to speak with the receptionist. Then, I pretty much had to give her the details and the names of the people I spoke with, then she was able to get me in contact with an HR person who could tell me the job details I wanted. Great. So then, I finally speak with her only to get, "Ahh, we at Abbott give very competitive wages for engineers," to which she wouldn't budge any further.
Talk about a waste of time - if I'm expected to spend significant amounts of time in the interview process, I really need to know the wage. Especially if I have other job offers I need to weigh this position with. In the past, if an employer ever told me, "competitive salary," I generally assumed it was very close to minimum wage because there are no regulations associated with the use of the phrase "competitive salary" (kind of like Bell's "fibre-optic" Internet called "Fibe" that's really the same old copper wire due to not regulating the use of words).
It's very sad because this looks like a good position, but it is unfortunately situated in Ottawa, one of the most expensive cities to live in throughout Canada (you have two universities and the parliament, really inflating the rent cost). If I had an offer with a similar wage located in a less expensive city, I'd have no choice but to choose that instead.
Another con with Abbott is that, nowadays, they'll hire most of their new employees on a contract set for a short time, which includes this position. Then, "if you work well", they'll hire you full-time, or so they say. So if you're relocating for this position, be careful due to the potential for less to no job security. Hiring people on a contract sadly exempts you from many employment laws for the province of Ontario. Again, if I had an offer that started me full-time versus one that started me off on a six-month contract, I'd have to choose the former.
Overall, it actually looked like a good position with some very interesting applications, and the interviewers did a good job answering technical (non-HR related) questions about the position. But, this company has too many interviews for what its worth - you'll have to take a lot of time of school or work to do these interviews just for one position. Plus, Abbott has a notorious record for being slow in their interviewing process. If you have any other offers, I'd recommend you take them first - chances are Abbott will take a quarter of the year to contact you back.