EF advertised the position through LinkedIn.
The very detailed job description and areas of responsibility clearly suggested the position demands a very mature person with strong business acumen and commercial sales capabilities. A position that not easily can be done by a "younger" person as he/she would not yey have the experence nor the maturity.
Based on a fair, objective review of my quaIifications and the specific commercial sales results I had achieved as senior consultant for 2 worldclass foreign Australian universities, delivering for them a comprehensive range of educational services in the same geographic market the EF position sought fulfilled, I felt confident I most likely would get asked at least for an interview.
I submitted my application by email expecting to hear within 2-4 weeks. Sure enough, BUT to my astonishment, I received a telephone call the very next morning from a person who came across not well prepared. The person excitedly, presenting herself for EF, but delivered in faltering English (wherefore I felt obliged to change to the Indonesian language, which I am fluent in, to her relief I sensed). She asked I immediately come for an interview the following week. We agreed on the date and time.
Actively looking for a position with all the ups and downs everyone goes through during active job searches that are time consumng and can be very frustrating, I was of course initially very pleased to land this interview appointment.
I read up on interviews and working environment comments from others, as well as employee remarks regarding the EF culture provided by your excellent Glassdoor services.
Frankly, the remarks I read do not portray a very well organized, nor particularly professionally presentable organization. I recall staff complaints about too "friendly" managers running an organization with much partying and drinking with staff instead of serious professional behaviour, happening far too frequently.
It turns out, the telephone conversation I had with the EF person to set-up the interview strengthened the poor impressions others seem to share about EF as a young, poorly managed, disorganized seat-of-the-pants organization. The person I spoke to was clearly very young. She did not conduct the telephone conversation in a manner that instilled much confidence that my application had been thought through enough before making the "hasty" excited not well prepared call to me for setting up an interview more or less immediately (a week later).
I then received all of 3 follow-up calls over the next several days each morning, in which the interview date was changed 2 times. The last time, the 3rd told by an increasingly apologetic EF Jakarta person that the manager from Hong Kong had cancelled the trip to Indonesia, and they would get in touch as soon as a new schedule had been set up as he or she was very busy and had to attend to other matters elsewhere in China (or whereever). I have never heard from EF since.
Other people's comments had warned me already that this indeed is a seat-of-the pants operation with far too much overlap and disorganization at the senior managers level followed up and handled by incompetency at the lower levels. My experience strengthens and confirms for me this to be absolutely true.
If my experence is anything to go by then apparently constant decision changes with little regard or respect for people seems to prevail here.
