I was first interviewed by phone, having to answer some basic Java questions of average difficulty, asked by a polite project manager. I mentioned directly I had no professional experience on .Net, Spring and hibernate, his response was that: "we are only looking for fast learners". The salary range of the job ad was 25 000 to 30 000 pounds depending on experience, whereas in my CV my desired salary range was from 30 000 to 40 0000 pounds. Thus, I tried to avoid traveling to Leeds. However he did not accept my suggestion of a further video call interview via skype, but insisted on a face to face interview. So I had to fly to Leeds paying about 400 pounds for a face to face interview! Since the fares to fly directly to Bradford Leeds airport were exorbitant, I had to fly to Manchester and get to Leeds by train (25 pounds for the tickets, if booked early). Getting back to Manchester was a mere torture, since the evening train was too crowded to find an empty seat. The Detica offices are in business park, way far from the Leeds city center, that is the Railway station. I had to pay more than 6 pounds to the taxi to get there on time. The nearest bus (444) stop is roughly 10 minutes walk. The first exam step was a 50 min java test of 45 questions. Some options mentioned "compilation error in line x " but there were no line numbers printed in the source code presented, which showed that the test was rather hastily written. I was told not to answer the spring or hibernate section. My score was good, only 2 errors as I was told when the actual interview began later. Some two hours of technical and personal questions followed. When I finally started asking questions, I dared to express my concerns about financial instability, the BAE Systems share price collapsing in the London stock exchange, the restructuring of the company and the many employees made redundant, the interviewers answered diplomatically that these were unjustified rumors of low quality press. The job role was only hardcore coding, since all analysis and design is done by other departments of Detica. A week later I received negative feedback from the job agent, my application for the job was rejected due to showing lack of commitment and low level of command of Java language. A total waste of time, effort and money!
