Started with a lovely phone call with their recruiter. Everything was wildly positive and encouraging. I really loved the vibe of the place and the energy the recruiter brought to the call. I was honestly really enamoured. A weekish later came the code test. It was a do-at-home style assessment. However the amount of work was pretty insane. At least 2-3 days worth of building a program, a "suite" of unit tests, and full documentation. I admit I didn't spent the 3 days on it, but I coded enough for anyone with an ounce of programming knowledge to able to see that I do know how to code, write unit tests and document what I had done. And I was not going to be surprised if they said "no thanks" anyway, but again, only so much I'm willing to do for free. They /shredded/ me. It was the most absolutely one of the rudest comments under the guise of "feedback" I have ever received in my 10+ years of coding and as a woman in IT, I have dealt with some massively rude men in my time. From what I can tell they really want a finished of, perfectly running, commented, tested and documented bit of code. Which is absolutely insane for any interview process, let alone when the only person I've spoken to is their recruiter. Don't waste your time. I half wonder if they were really just looking for some free work to be done. Probably a ticket from Jan 2022 that they haven't been able to solve yet. Who knows what they would have done with my work.

I applied to Shell, but I am getting redirected to write about Octopus since Shell got acquired. I submitted my application online and received and automated test which I believe takes about 45 minutes. They ask you a lot of multiple choice questions with what-if situations, then the tool sends you an assessment result where they write about your strengths and weaknesses. It all looked really good, but after about 2 days I was then sent an email that I was not selected to proceed to have a recruiter call. It all felt very impersonal and like you do the automated test for nothing, because even though the result is good you may get a general rejection response, without understanding why and no actual conversation with a recruiter, almost like when you simply apply but they don't find something specific in your CV a fit, only you spent an extra hour on an automated test that is possibly not even considered.