Was involved in a campus project funded by Huawei. The project leader, a technology director at the company recommended me after a first interview during a special PhD hiring program of the company.
Was booked flight ticket and spend 4 days at the company headquarter with many other graduating phd students from china main universities including hongkong and macao. The company took charge of all expenses including hotel, meals, transportation in the city and return flight tickets. We had several sessions of panel discussions during which we could ask questions about the company with the HR and R&D leadership staff and among ourselves. The environment was pretty friendly and the 3rd day i had a couple of 1:1 interview with hiring managers. The first one was technical stuff, and what I thought my asset could be for technology innovation and also in what way my background work could apply to a position at the company Technology R&D center.
Apparently my research area which was on antennas did not directly fit to their objectives so the man proposed to rather send my CV to one of their 100% owned subsidiary companies which was working on antenna products sourcing; what which i was not very enthusiastic about since it would involve me starting all over and there was no assurance they would consider me a plus to their staff which i believe was already complete. One thing amazed me was the interview r persistence in asking me if i had any more questions about the company and what were my expectations from Huawei. I tried by all means to avoid having to bring in salary talks bout I could not escape. I gave a figure and he wrote it now without any arguments. I also asked what was expected from the R&D team in terms of results and he answered that even though getting results was important, the R&D team members were not paid based on the results they obtained.
In the end it was averagely difficult my estimation but i was offered a second 1:1 interview with an other head HR manager. This second interview was much a personality test and a description of a paper I published. I was also asked if I had eventually considered going for a professor career at university. Life questions, my plans with the company and the place I would like to work in since the company had many R&D centers. In the end i judged the second interview went very well.
Yet in the end i did not get any feedback after returning to campus and 4 weeks later I resolved to inquire of the technology director who had recommended me. He answered that if after two weeks there is no feedback then, the candidate in general should understand, they were not taken in. He added that he went over to check on the list of the candidates who were retained and my name was not there. He said he was very surprised himself and disappointed that I was not retained since he could testify personally of skills and qualifications. Twas quite a disappointment to me and mostly because of the policy of Huawei not even to notify unsuccessful candidates.
Overall, the interview quite an experience, it was rich and interesting. The outcome was however disappointing that I was not given an offer.