Was contacted the week between Xmas and New Years.

Phone interview consisted of speaking with two gentlemen. One would have been the s/w team's manager and the other was his boss. This took place right before the New Year weekend.

Phone interview went well. At the end of the interview, the manager said they normally get together and talk, and then tell HR the results of their discussions. But, he thought it went so well they wanted me to come for a site visit, and could I possibly be available in the next two weeks.

On the day being observed as the national holiday for New Years, I received an email asking if I could fly out the following day. In order to show my interest and get-it-done attitude, I said I could do it. I received flight confirmation at 9:30 p.m. that evening along with the itinerary for the interviews.

It was required that you submit the answers to an online security questionnaire and employment application before the interview. I spent four hours filling this out before the flight.

(Note: they want salary history for the last seven years; this is marked as mandatory), addresses of all companies, the name of your supervisor, the phone number, etc..

The flights they picked required me to take three days off of work.

Amongst the many red flags starting to appear was the fact that the interview was less than two hours long. It consisted of talking to the main s/w manager, the two managers I phone interviewed with, and an HR person. (no team members, no tour of the facilities).

I arrived at the hotel at 2:00 a.m. and arrived for the interview 10-15 minutes before the start of the interview the next day.

After checking in with the front desk per the instructions, I waited. Finally, the HR person apologized and asked the status (he had walked by a few times as I was sitting in the lobby, waiting and waiting). I said I had checked in and was waiting for the first interviewer. He acted as if he didn't even know I was supposed to be there and asked if I had a copy of my itinerary. I told him I had it with me in electronic format but, then proceeded to give the names and times of each interviewer on the itinerary from memory, which seemed to impress him.

He went searching for gentleman number 1. He came back later and said, "Well, you were supposed to talk to me second, but why don't we talk now while waiting for gentleman number 1." So, he went through his 15-minute talk and then we talked some more, and talked, and waited, and talked. Finally, he said, "I don't know what happened. "Gentleman number 1" is never late." (After I got back home and described the interview to a friend, he said the one-liner that pretty much summed up this whole ordeal: "Gee, you would think Nokia would have heard of cell phones and they might have tried calling the guy").

So, the HR person starts walking me back out to the lobby (to wait), but while on the way the HR person runs into the manager who I had spoken with on the phone a few days earlier. They huddle together for a while and decide I might as well talk to him. So, we turn around and head back to the interview room. After about 10-15 minutes, in strolls "gentleman 1". Since he's the head of s/w, the attention goes to him. Then about ten minutes later, the second gentleman from the phone interview strolls in.

Now, there are all three of the gentlemen there. About ten minutes later, "gentleman 1" leaves. Things wind down and I'm asked if there are any questions. I ask him what, if anything, might be a concern to him, so I can possibly address it. He says, my lack of mobile phone development experience. I paused and was taken aback because I had asked about this during the phone interview. I brought it up and wanted to make perfectly clear how much mobile development experience I had. It was discussed during the phone interview and was not a problem at that time.

I'm thinking to myself, I took three days off of work, flew 1,500 miles, and have been putting up with this disorganized interview, and now you tell me this, after we discussed it earlier and it wasn't an issue three days ago.

In hindsight, maybe I should have said exactly what I was feeling at that time. Maybe, if you are currently not working (as the HR person said was the status of many current candidates), the disrespect I was shown due to their disorganization would not be a big deal. Maybe, if you are local to the area, then wasting an afternoon sitting around the Nokia lobby would not be a big deal. But, I flew 1,500 miles and took three days off of work due to their scheduling.

My impression of the two gentlemen whom I spoke with (phone interview and in person briefly) are that they would be quite impressive on a personal level: bright and hard working. But, the disorganized, haphazard method in which this was conducted left me feeling disillusioned with Nokia and disrespected.

Design a system that would contact a caregiver if an elderly person were in need of help, and then locate, from a list of helpers, the one closest to the person in need.