I applied through an employee referral. The process took 4 months. I interviewed at NTT DATA
Interview
It was an extraordinarily lengthy process. It took about 4 months to complete. There are additional steps kept being disclosed after the fact. It would be better to disclose all the steps in the process up front. There did not seem to be a sense of urgency. They have all the sophisticated processes, but they do not account for the human factor. The central point of contact in recruitment was very scattered.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
They were all over the place and went through a long process. There were a lot of required question (s) that you could tell the interviewer(s) thought were a waste of time, but were required. They were following a process that someone invested a lot of money to design.
I applied through a staffing agency. The process took 2 days. I interviewed at NTT DATA (Londen, Engeland) in Jul 2010
Interview
Initially, they used an agency to conduct a phone interview with candidates, addressing some competency questions. Having passed that hurdle, 52 (!) candidates attended an assessment centre which involved typical group exercises (you're stranded in a desert, what objects should we take?) as well as 3 minute individual presentations and - a lot - of waiting. The agency (a subsidiary of Randstad) clearly treated candidates like idiots, reminding us to wear a suit and shake hands and kept calling to check you knew what you were meant to be doing. They were very keen to make sure you would take a potential offer and no flexibility whatsoever regarding the starting date.
Following this day there was an assessment centre at Dimension Data itself with the 18 best candidates, which was run in a much better fashion. This was at their office in Fleet, and involved group presentations, a written exercise as well as individual interviews. They said they'd pay for travel to their offices but I still haven't received the money!
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Give us an example of how you've had to convince someone of a course of action to take?