Long interview process, 2+ months. Interview process starts with the video interview. As described in many reviews here, it’s a recorded interview of several questions that you have limited time to prepare or answer. That aspect I do not mind, if it’s to weed out unqualified candidates, that is fair. However, if all it is doing is scanning for key words and not actually reviewed by HR or the Hiring Manager, I take issue with this as I feel some questions were so specific, you just got free legal advice.
I felt the recruiters were extremely disorganized. I told them from the start I had competing offers, this was not shared with the Hiring Manager (which was obvious during the F2F interview), salary and comp was discussed early on and Illumina tried to cap salary and benefits weeks before the F2F interviews. I explained that my range was X-X and their max offer was not competitive and I was still brought in to interview which I took to mean they were flexible on their max offer. Piece of advice to your comp team, the cost of living in San Diego is not that much less to other major markets to justify such low base/bonus and RSU’s.
After a full day of interviews and a week delay before any feedback, I was told I did not get the job which in my opinion was because they clearly didn’t want to pay for my expertise but hope to find someone cheaper (job is already reposted). The feedback given for their decision was not truthful as I have significant experience in my field of expertise.
My advice to anyone interviewing, don’t bother going through the process if you know early on that their salary offer won’t meet your expectations. I could have saved myself 2 months had I stated don’t interview me if you can’t meet my comp demand. In the end, I got an offer of $40K+ base, 5%+ bonus and $175K+ RSU above Illumina’s max offer from another company who was willing to pay for the expertise I have.
