I applied for couple of positions in this company. I received an email on a Tuesday asking me to finish 38 HR questions, attached as a word document. I did so. There was no follow up email or anything. on Thursday, I got a call from one of the engineers and told me that he wants to talk for an hour.
It was already 5:00 pm and he didnt even have a courtesy to ask me whether it is ok to have a conversation now. Well, I overlooked it and answered his questions politely. His tone went from smooth to rough to harassing. Anyways, I kept my cool and was called for onsite interview at the end of the call.
I flied to Rayleigh the next Tuesday to be interviewed on the Wednesday. It was the most horrifying event, I ever had in my college life. Most of the people attended my presentation had no idea what I am presenting. WOrst thing is they never showed any enthusiasm in knowing"is this something new?". One of the interviewer (PhD from Cornell) couldn't understand the difference between injection molding and extrusion. Com'on... don't you know the difference between a spaghetti maker and syringe.
Their questions for a PhD level job are as follows,
1. How many barbers are there in a city of 2 million?
2. I went to my garage one day and saw my light glowing dim. What would you do to help me fix it?
3. What is the melting point of platinum, mercury, rhenium?
4. Explain me the parts in a tube furnace?
5. How long is the tube, what are its specs, did you order the tube, if yes, who is the vendor?
6. How would you teach an illiterate how to use a weighing balance and measure 200 g of samples?
They will take you to a rice looking restaurant for lunch. But, they wont care what you want to eat? They will eat well and ask you mentally torturing questions (like Q6 above) while you try to eat. So, you better be ready to sacrifice your lunch. The torture then cotinues till 4:30.
If you are not from that location, they will invite you for dinner. After interview, they (3 interviewers) invited me for dinner. They took me to "Ruth's Chris" and ordered T-Bone Steak for all of them. I thought the interview is over and they are trying to know me personally. I was wrong. They started asking really vague questions (Q3 above). (Melting point of mercury???By that time,I was exhausted.) Finally, they asked me do I have any questions for them. When I asked about their product, their reply was "sorry, we dont talk about our work to outsiders" (outsider??!!!, I have been interviewed for one whole day for god sake).
Anyways, they let me loose after I had dinner as I had a flight to catch back the early next day morning. Coupe of weeks later, I was given a call and greeted me mentioning that I am selected and my pay is 55K/yr (that's for a fresh PhD. So, fresh BS and MS can estimate how much your starting pay will be).(This is for a job that expects 60 hrs/week work. So, my real pay is around $40K/yr). I laughed, said "I am not happy with the pay and also with whole interview process" and hung up the phone.
Moral of the Story: Apply for positions here. You will get interview call for sure. Go through all the pain that I have mentioned above. Cree is a worst employer/interviewer but you will feel tough and mentally prepared for fore-coming interview calls from other companies. Thanks to Cree from that perspective.
