At first I was very impressed about the recruitment process and the company, but I am still shocked about the super rude way my process was interrupted by the recruitment specialist of Klarna. Quick summary: You either work 40-hours a week, or you can't work at Klarna.
I applied for the position and got an e-mail a couple of days after my application to take an abstract reasoning test as a first step in the procedure. I know people have very different opinions about using these tests, but there is no 'one size fits all' test and this is a reasonable way to asses your way of thinking and reasoning.
About a day after taking the test, I got an e-mail from a Talent Acquisition Coordinator to set up my first meeting, which was an introduction call to get to know more about Klarna and the position. The call was very nice and open.
Soon thereafter I got an email from the Talent Acquisition Coordinator to set-up a second meeting with her, to take another abstract reasoning test, only this time a supervised one. In addition I had to do a case study, to assess my technical skills.
The case study was very doable and the instructions were very clear and accurate. The abstract reasoning test was comparable to the first one and also very doable! The call surrounding that test was very relaxed and I felt really comfortable.
After the test another interview was scheduled to see how I felt about the culture and leadership at Klarna. Again this was a very nice conversation, where I met very friendly and positive team members of Klarna.
After this call I was supposed to have another case study, where I had to present a case that I had prepared to someone from Klarna. The Talent Acquisition Coordinator called me before that meeting, to also schedule a 'Team Fit' meeting. In that call I mentioned the fact that we never spoke about working hours/days, and that I work 4 days a week. This is where tings took a very big turn. Her response was that she didn't know and would call me back as soon as possible about that.
I got a voicemail from someone at Klarna recruitment that I never heard of or spoke in the process up until that point. The voicemail was very harsh and basically with the question if I could give him a call. Which I obviously did. He said that he wanted to 'give me an update' and that they do not allow working less than 40 hours. He added that he called me 'to convince me to work 40 hours for Klarna', because I seemed like a good fit and all the feedback from the interviews up until that point was very positive. I told him that I have been working 4 days for the last 7 years and that I've reserved the 5th day for my personal development. His response was more or less that I wasted their time, which he tried to bring polite by saying that they would have never invited me in the first place if they would have known that I did not want to work 40 hours a week.
For a company that has its HQ in Sweden, the country that is all about proper work-personal life balance, this is a complete shock. Their view on working schedules appears to be very traditional, where there is absolutely no way to work less than 40 hours, no matter how talented you are or how great the fit is.
All the people I've spoken to, apart from the recruiter, were very kind, professional and welcoming. The process itself was very professional and the conversations were super nice. The case studies are very doable, but you really need to have some skills to do them properly. Their leadership principles are really what enables people to be successful, which makes it such a pitty that their ethics around working hours are still stuck in 1991, rather than 2021.