Farm Credit Bank of Texas Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process had two parts. First was a phone interview, and if that went well, the second part was an in-person interview. If you got invited for the in-person interview, your LinkedIn info was shared with the interviewer and vice versa, so you both knew what each other looked like. My in-person interview was terrible. I got there 10 minutes early, dressed professionally. I waited about 15 minutes past the scheduled time before anyone showed up. I was supposed to meet with the assistant and the manager, but instead, I only met with a team lead who seemed unhappy to be there, even shocked and disgruntled. She told me the manager was dealing with a crisis about communication between a branch and a credit reporting agency. I asked which one, and she listed the 3 major credit bureaus. I thought this was odd because banks usually use services like Factual Data or Credit Plus, not pull directly from the bureaus, as they aren't set up for banking programs like Encompass or MSP. I dismissed it because I figured the interview wouldn't go well, given this woman seemed to be trying to fool me. She asked a few questions about myself, my background, and home life, not really about the job. She gave a vague description of the job duties. About 10 minutes into the interview, the manager joined, bringing his laptop, and asked if it was okay to handle the credit reporting issue while interviewing me. I felt insulted but agreed. He asked a few technical questions, which I answered based on the scenario. Then he asked a vague question with no context that could have had multiple answers. Basically, Farm Credit Bank works with smaller banks, and their clients use different operating systems; their IT network helps with both servicing and origination mortgage operations. They were clearly looking for a reason not to hire me. The manager went over my resume, and we briefly discussed my 10+ years of experience in both servicing and origination. I asked them questions too, as it's a two-way street. When I asked what they liked most about their job, the lead said benefits and the gym, and the manager said he liked the daily challenges. By the end, I was eager to leave. The lead's final comment, said condescendingly, was, 'You know this position is temporary, don't you?' I said yes and was over the whole experience. I was notified the next day that I wasn't selected for either of the two open positions. Later, I found out there were 3 applicants, and the other two were white. Only one had mortgage IT experience like me; the other had little to none. I heard they got a building tour during their interviews, which I didn't. An associate I know who works there said my experience sounded discriminatory. You can draw your own conclusions, but older reviews on Glassdoor seem accurate.

So I applied online with my resume and then had a 30 minute phone call. The person interviewing me said I seemed like a good fit and would send a survey to move to the next step. Six days went by with no word, even after I sent two reminder emails. I finally called them and they apologized for forgetting to send it because they were busy. Then another four days passed and I got an email saying I was rejected. I'm really confused and frustrated by the unprofessionalism from the leadership or hiring team at Farm Credit Bank of Texas.

So, Farm Credit works exclusively with a staffing agency, and you have to be with them for two years before they hire you directly. The agency itself was a bit of a nightmare; my contact there kept telling me not to embarrass them. After about three weeks of back and forth with the agency, I finally got an in-person interview. This interview was with the hiring manager and the QA team lead, who frankly had a terrible attitude. She was really fixated on creating test cases from scratch and didn't answer my questions about the QA team well. I just asked if, since they were hiring more people, they already had test procedures or if they were planning a full QA process revamp. She said they'd stick to the test scripts. Then I asked why making new test cases was such a big deal, and the team lead got mad, becoming really snarky and sarcastic.

Had a pleasant phone chat and then an in-person meeting which was also pleasant. I met with the hiring manager, director, and other team members. We went over some of my past work and interests. The work environment seemed nice, and the location near Pennybacker Bridge was scenic.