I was first contacted by a recruiter. Then a test online and last they set me up for a 'hackathon' on a Saturday Morning at 7:00am.
I walked in, greeted and sat at a table by myself (instead of pair like it was intended). No one was able to think... 'oh, let's put him with a pair' and problem solved. No. They sat me down with one of the Honeywell current developers in her very early 20s. (keep this in mind, it is important).
They handed me a sheet of paper with a problem. I was supposed to solve this in one hour I believe and more importantly they will be assessing your interaction with your pair, team work, etc. But, I was by myself... sorry, not true; my pair was a 'human' robot that uttered 20 sentences during the whole process. I feel bad for her to some extent because she was supposed to brainstorm with me the solution. Obviously she knows the solution therefore she was timid on her answers because she didn't want to give much away. I must say that she was VERY nice (she brought me coffee) but other than that I didn't have any way to establish a good rapport there.
When I opened my computer she saw my Chrome theme where my age is displayed. She was "wowed" that i was almost 40 years old. That hit me, specially because really seemed discriminatory in some sense.
That caught my attention. When I started looking around, most of the interviewers were very very young guys and gals. I saw a pattern immediately.
At this point I was already discouraged to even work with this wave of Millennials so I spent my next hour reading between lines what was all this hackathon about.
At the face to face interview rounds, I noticed that they were focused mostly on just the younger crowd. In front of me there was a pair, one young guy and a much older guy. Five interviewers came to talk to the young guy. Only one to the older guy. See the pattern? And this was for most of the people there.
I had the 'privilege' to have one guy sitting with me to ask me about "scaling applications" He mentioned the term "elasticity". When I asked him what did he mean by 'elastic scaling' I was referring to a more technical explanation (either scale horizontally or vertically). Well, this condescending young kid tells me "Elasticity, like an elastic, you know" while doing with his hand a motion of stretching out a rubber band... Seriously?
Anyway, this was one of the most cold, dry and worthless experiences I have had. These kids running the show don't care. They are too caught up in their own ego and they feel like Gods walking around with a fake smile on their faces and memorized scripts that spit out at each table.
I know Honeywell is too big like to worry about glassdoor's interviews reviews. They have too much money and they just don't care. I felt treated like cattle. Honestly. Terrible.