Time wasters.
First was approached by a recruiter on LinkedIn and had a general screening interview for the Cloud Engineering VelocITy Programme in October 2021 which was quite easy, just asking about my college work/work experience/interest in technology. I was told I was through to the final round which was not until the end of January 2022 and that intake would be in March. In the meantime, they invited me to 2 events which seemed really as though they were trying to oversell the company. Informative at times but very repetitive and unnecessary in my opinion. I felt slightly obligated to attend in order to make a good impression.
The final interview was extremely lengthy. Candidates were required to log on at half 8 in the morning and stay until 5 pm. We were asked to complete a group interview and an assignment they sent 3 days prior which I spent a considerable amount of time preparing.
The group interview was fine. We were asked to work as a team to prepare a presentation for a client where we would help them move to the cloud. The team I was with I found very friendly and it went quite smoothly. In the final interview, I was asked questions on my background which went well but the assignment part was awful. They had stated previously that there were "no incorrect answers" when asking the questions on the assignment and that they just wanted to see how our minds worked however my interviewer would bluntly say NO or WRONG as I was speaking which really just shut me down and quite frankly made me give up on the interview midway. It was very uncomfortable and made me feel quite clueless when I knew the theory we were being questioned on as I had covered it in my computing degree.
At the end of the day there were further Q&A sessions I felt obliged to attend where they repeated the same content from the two events I had attended previously. We were told it would take 7 to 10 days to hear back however it actually took a total of 28 days which is completely unacceptable. In the end, I was told I did great in the group interview but was rejected on my performance in the assignment.
I had found a different job in the meantime and I was planning on turning down their offer if one was made but honestly, I have never spent so much time on a recruiting process. If I had advice for Avanade it would be to stop wasting so much of their own time and the candidate's time on tasks and events. In total between the screening, preparing the assignment, events leading up to the interview and the final interview I would say I spent 20 plus hours on this company and I also had to wait 4 weeks to hear back.
Just apply to other graduate programs that will definitely pay you more and require fewer months of your time.