I applied for Project/Application Engineer in Seoul, South Korea.
For 2 months, I had 3 interviews in person in Seoul and then 6 more phone interviews with Bloom Energy's employees working in the US.
The interview went well with Korean CEO and others in Seoul. However, during the 6 phone interviews for 3 days I felt like the interviewers did not understand the role I applied in Seoul while they were talking about the job description. I still doubt it is really necessary to have excessive interviews with employees who had lack of understanding of this role. Even some of them were not a good interviewer. I felt that I applied for the wrong company, which I felt completely different in the interviews in Seoul.
After the 9 interviews, I did not hear anything from Korean and US offices. When I emailed a few weeks later, HQ said they did not collect the feedback from 6 interviewers yet and busy with moving to the new office.
I forgot about them for a while and then after 2.5 months, I emailed the Korean office and HR in the US. They ignored my email, which I found it very unprofessional. When I sent another email to the senior director at HR, he replied after an hour this time. He wanted to chat but I told him to talk through an email. He finally sent a follow up email which took 3 months after the last interview. In the email, he said my skills do not meet the requirement.
I don’t know if it is a cultural difference or not. In general, you get notice within 1-2 weeks after the interviews in my country, and not being treated like this.
It was a time-consuming and unpleasant experience. I expected at least Korean CEO, who was my hiring manager, would notice me, but he ignored my email at the end.
You may need an extremely strong mentality for the interviews at this company. They know how to waste your time and energy.
I'm glad that I did not get an offer.