I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at EY (New York, NY) in Dec 2011
Interview
I was contacted by a headhunter who after 2 interviews had scheduled a phone screen with a principal at E&Y. A week after that they started working on an in person interview with Ernst & Young Advisory in NYC.
The HR team at EY was unorganized and would send out interview appointments on a Wednesday for that Friday, not factoring in that I am not even in the same time zone. We had to do that a few times until I finally made it.
There were 4 interviewers and one discussion with the in-house recruiter. The first interviewer was 20 minutes late for the 30 minute interview. Had no idea of my background and did not even know what was on the resume. He became agitated as I asked him a followup question about the group's strategy, which is a fairly common question. Second interviewer was the Principal I had initially spoken with and it went smooth, third interview was with another Prinicpal who was 15 minutes late for the interview, and had been with E&Y for all his career yet could not understand that in some companies the roles between delivery, management, and service development are not fully separate. The recruiter just wanted to know a number which would prompt me to jump ship, and it was on okay discussion. The Partner for the group had me wait for 20 minutes and then sent the message that he can not meet for 2 hours if I can wait or they will reschedule. The recruiter said they were ready to make an offer but needed for the partner to meet before they can give a final number.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
from the in house recruiter- what number do I have to hit today for you to make the decision today and start on Monday.
Lack of early alignment between role level, responsibilities, and candidate expectations, which made it difficult to understand where I realistically fit in the process
Insufficient transparency around interview purpose and seniority of the roles being assessed, which created confusion about what stage was actually evaluating
Shifting role direction during the process (different levels discussed at different stages), rather than a consistent hiring path
Compensation expectations were not clearly addressed upfront, despite being shared early in the process
Overall process felt unstructured in terms of matching candidate profile to the right role level before progressing through interviews, which made the experience feel somewhat inefficient and frustrating as a candidate
Interview process is relatively straight forward. HR is very responsive. 2 stages altogether, 1 with a director and another with the partner. Reasonable questions asked during interviews. Got offer in less than 1 week. Overall positive experience and
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at EY (London, England)
Interview
A screening call from friendly HR staff in the Philipines, follow HR screening by UK based HR staff, 1st competency screening 60 mins, 2nd competency screening 90 mins, from the 1st competency screening the interview coordination became hectic as if they didn't not comunicate internally, different people were invited to interview and different people joined, the focus on interview was completely different to what it was mentioned by their HR. Lack of coordination by the HR was outrageous.