Firmenich Interview Questions
& Process

There were five rounds of interviews: first, a recruiter screen, then a hiring manager interview, followed by interviews with the project co-lead and the project head. The final decision was made after the fourth round, and the fifth round with the client was mainly for added value. There was also a profiling exercise to assess alignment with the project's requirements.

First, there was a call with a recruiter from a third-party agency. This recruiter didn't even know the correct job title for the role, initially offering an analyst position when it was actually for a specialist. Then, I had an interview with the hiring manager and another specialist from the area. The manager's interview was extremely unpleasant. He spoke very negatively about the company, mentioning its lack of resources and precarious conditions in many aspects. He even suggested a competitor might be a better choice and complained about the company's location in Cotia, emphasizing how far away it is from everything. It was a horrible and awkward experience; I felt like I wasted my time, and unfortunately, I got a very bad impression of the company!

The hiring process felt really unprofessional. It started with an HR call asking me to walk through my background. I went through 7 rounds in total. After speaking with the Hiring Manager, I was told I'd have a panel interview. However, this turned into 4 separate 30-minute interviews, all crammed into 2 days. They sent the requests for these the day before, giving me no time to even notify my current employer. During one of the 'panel' interviews, the interviewer was so distracted, checking emails and dealing with a ringing phone, that the interview was cut short to about 10 minutes. The final stage was a presentation based on a brief they provided. After the presentation, the team only gave positive feedback on my work. They then left me waiting for over two weeks before informing me they'd chosen someone else. The entire experience felt like a waste of my time.

So I had this interview for a Customer Experience role. It started off great, first talking to the recruiter, then the hiring manager. After that, another manager from the team chatted with me. Things got a bit fuzzy here because it wasn't totally clear how this role fit in with the different managers and their teams. I guess that's understandable if it's a new role and the team is growing, so I kept going. They told me I was in the final stage. Then, after three weeks of silence, I got an automated email on a Saturday morning saying I wasn't a good fit. I mean, an automated rejection is one thing early on, but at the very end, it just felt really impersonal.