The interview process consisted of an info session, a managerial interview, and a "technical screening" interview over a six-week period. I sent my application informally to a friend who works at the company, who passed it on to his supervisor. He and the supervisor were very helpful in suggesting improvements to fine-tune my resume for the positions I was applying for. After about a week of emails, they said it looked good and would pass it on to the hiring manager.

A week later, I got an email from the hiring manager saying that I looked like a good candidate and that he would like to schedule a brief phone interview with me. This part took 30 minutes and included generic interview questions, as well as questions on projects I had worked on. The hiring manager was friendly and easy to talk to and said that the next step would be to do the technical screening, which "would be a breeze." He recommended I go straight for a full-time position rather than an internship. I asked about not having much work experience in the field, and he assured me they don't expect college candidates to have any formal experience working as software engineers and that I would learn it in the first few months of training. I told him I was definitely interested in continuing the interview process. I said that I had Spring Break the following week and that I would be unavailable from Sunday - Wednesday, so it would be best to do the interview either before or after that time. He said that was no problem and that he would talk to the technical interviewer, and I would have a response by the weekend.

After not hearing anything back before my trip, I returned on Wednesday to see a handful of emails from HPE in my inbox along the lines of "Hey, so-and-so would like to schedule an interview with you, what time are you free?" followed by "Still haven't heard from you, please contact so-and-so to set up an interview time" and "Hi, this is so-and-so, are you still interested in applying for the job?" I was definitely annoyed by this, but I brushed it off and scheduled an interview for that Friday afternoon, for which I had to push my leave date for a second mini-trip forward to make time for the interview. I got up Friday morning and found a new email saying something "urgent" had come up and that the interviewer would have to do an earlier time that day. This was the second time I was asked to reschedule a phone call with them (the first was with somebody else regarding application information), but I tried to be understanding and went with it. I received the phone call for the interview, and this is where the fun began.

The interviewer briefly introduced herself and began asking questions. The first one was on Java, which I was very surprised by, since neither of the positions I was applying for had any mention of Java. I explained to the interviewer that I don't have much Java experience and that I hadn't used the language in at least two years, to which I was met with silence and anticipation of my answer to "What are some advantages and disadvantages of Java?" I gave it my best attempt from what I could remember (fun details below).

I anxiously waited for a question on either JavaScript, C/C++, OOP, or even Linux, but it never came. Instead, I was asked questions about concepts I had either forgotten or never learned in the first place. The interviewer had a condescending demeanor and was very hard to talk to. Two-thirds of the way through the interview, I wanted to stop her and ask to make sure she was interviewing me for the positions I had actually applied for, since the questions seemed more geared towards software engineering concepts than CS or general software development. After finishing the interview, the interviewer told me that she would pass the results on to the hiring manager and that I would hear back by the end of the day. Five days later, I received an email saying they found other candidates that better fit the job.

The whole process left a bad taste in my mouth and gave me a negative opinion of a company for which I had previously had a positive one. After going through this process, I'm actually not upset about not receiving an offer (I was given a better offer from a company I liked more just thirty minutes after getting HPE's rejection email). However, I am very disappointed in how bureaucratic and impersonal the interview process was. Interviews are for getting to know a person – how they think, how they act in certain situations, and whether or not they will be a good fit for the company and the job. In addition, interviews give the candidate insight into the company. After the longest interview process of my life, I feel like I learned absolutely nothing about the people or the culture of HPE.

What are some advantages and disadvantages of Java?

What are linked lists most commonly used for?

Who performs unit testing?

Tell me about the software life cycle.