The interview process took 3 months, from my initial contact with HR to the final rounds of interviews. This included 5 rounds of interviews: 3 hours by telephone, plus 5 hours on the day of a face-to-face meeting.

Round 1: Initially, I corresponded with the hiring manager via email in July 2018. He then referred me to the HR Engineering Recruiter. I interviewed with the HR Recruiter by phone for 1 hour. HR also introduced me to another job posting in which I was more interested.

I applied for this job and submitted my CV, indicating the computer languages I was experienced in; C++ was not needed.

More email correspondence followed to arrange the next rounds of interviews. Great news for me!

Round 2: Interviewed with the New York team by phone for 1 hour on August 5, 2018. Successful!

Round 3: Interviewed with a senior member of the New York team by phone for 1 hour on August 6. Successful!

Rounds 4, 5, and 6: In-person, face-to-face interviews for 5 hours on September 19, 2018. Successful!

I interviewed with the New York team who flew out to Hong Kong, just a couple of days after a severe typhoon. The NY team flew out to Hong Kong and stayed during Typhoon Signal Number 10 (the highest category of storm) to conduct the final rounds of interviews.

I interviewed with 4 people: two team members from another department, the Hiring Manager (and would-be boss), and then HR again. Several team members shared their very diverse backgrounds, so I thought I'd fit in quite well. I had brought my career portfolio with exemplary performance reviews, numerous letters of recommendation, etc.

Afterwards, HR provided an overview of the phenomenal benefits and the company, then gave me a tour. During this tour, HR mentioned that Bloomberg was looking to hire lots of people within that department, as I could see during the tour there were many empty workstations. We did not discuss salary.

Then, HR graciously concluded the tour and said they'd definitely be in touch soon. HR mentioned she would be on holiday the following week.

Then I heard nothing. No offer was forthcoming. All that time was a waste.

A year later, I enquired again, updated my CV (with additional skills including Python, NumPy, and Jupyter notebooks within the Anaconda environment), and reapplied for several roles.

This time, an immediate rejection letter. No interview – I didn't even make it to Round 1.

What gives?

Why do you want to work for a financial tech company?