Panasonic Supply Chain Analyst Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process for the Supply Planner role at Panasonic Newark headquarters was quite a ride, mostly because of the senior recruiter. It kicked off with a standard recruiter phone call, which went fine. The recruiter, based in Chicago, then set up my next interview with the hiring manager for the following week. This interview was over Teams with the hiring manager of the hand-held devices supply and demand planning team. He was a bit late but apologized, spent about 30 minutes explaining the team and the role, and then we discussed my background and I asked questions. He mentioned this was the final interview to speed things up. I followed up with the recruiter for the next steps, but after three weeks of emails, it seemed like he'd ghosted me. The job application status also changed to 'closed' instead of a rejection, which was odd. A full month after the interview, the recruiter called with 'good news' – they wanted to extend a job offer. I was confused but interested and asked for a timeline. He promised an offer letter and call within a day or two. When that didn't happen, I emailed him. He called back citing a system issue on his end and said he'd be out, with an update promised for the following Wednesday. He still hadn't updated me by Wednesday EOD, so I followed up again. Finally, on Thursday evening, he called to say they decided not to proceed with the offer, explaining the team was 'taking another direction.' The call ended abruptly after a single apology. The lack of communication made it difficult to manage other job prospects and created false hope. This whole experience felt unprofessional and reflects poorly on the organization and its HR.

The whole thing took about 2 months from when I got a reference to an employee at Panasonic USA in Newark until my in-person interview and getting the response. I had to keep checking in with HR about what was next after the phone interview, before the in-person one, and even for the final decision. The HR phone screen was pretty straightforward, just 3 questions: Tell me about your procurement experience at your current organisation? Talk about some projects in detail. Why Panasonic? What are your salary expectations? Since we would require to sponsor you. It was a quick chat with HR. Then, the in-person interview involved talking to 3 people from the team. It was mostly based on my resume, trying to figure out my career path, if my academics were relevant, and what my professional interests are.

I was working as an intern for over a year, so it was pretty straightforward to get hired. Panasonic often brings in interns first, and then, based on how well they do and what the business needs are, they extend full-time offers. Just a heads-up, the pay isn't fantastic for entry-level roles.