How did I apply:
I had applied through a job agency, not directly. The position I guess was published in German, but since I had applied through an agency, I had send my English CV. Being honest, I never had a change to look into the requirements advertised for this position, so I was skeptical for the telephonic interview.
About me:
I am a foreign student who had done his masters in Germany and have some years of work experience in Germany after that. My level of Germany is intermediate. But I don't think the language was an issue for this position or interview.
Telephonic interview:
1st round was a telephonic interview with a technical manager. Everything went well. We discussed about the role, responsibility and my skill sets. It was more of a check whether I am the proper candidate. I was told that a new team was being rebuilt and so they wanted to hire new people. I felt comfortable and satisfied after the ~30 min telephonic talk. I expected a f2f call. I must say it was one of the best telephonic interviews in Germany I had.
Face to face interview:
As I had thought, I passed the 1st phase and was called for a f2f interview at Reutlingen. It consisted of an 1 non-technical and 2 technical managers. All the 3 people gave their general introduction and then came my turn.
I expected some technical discussions or questions. But it was nothing like that. It was pure 90 min of mostly irrelevant (as per my perception) HR type questions. For many questions I was not feeling free to answer them. I felt some kind of internal hindrance and there were counter questions based on the initial question. I just wanted to answer them somehow in the end, trying not to show any type of displeasure. The non-technical person always had a serious face, never smiled. The technical managers behaved like normal people and smiled now and them. I think I couldn't break the ice with the non-technical person.
In the end, the non-technical person asked me if I had any questions and I had replied 'yes'. Then I was asked to wait outside the interview room for about ~10min, since they wanted to discuss something among themselves.
When I came back, I was told that there were other candidates too to be considered and I would be informed within 1 week. I was not given an opportunity to ask what I wanted to ask. Only the non-technical person was talking now, no one else. This rang alarm bells within me. I knew something was not right. I was then told that the junior technical person would take me for a tour of the department. They seemed to be in a hurry to end the closed room conversation.
I was shown some company products on display with brief explanations on them, then we went into the department and I was shown some technical posters, etc. Then we went inside a conference room. The technical manager then explained in details what work was done, in which position I would come into the team and alike. Then he asked me among a group of tasks, which are the ones I can work upon. Barring one, I could have worked on all the parts. We talked upon simulation, synthesis, design automation, IP re-use and how the team & a project functions. We also discussed that a junior leadership role could be taken over by me in two years when I completely understood their business. Again everything seemed fine and both of us seemed to be happy with the mutual responses (just the type of feeling I had after the telephonic interview).
My thoughts:
I did not get the offer finally. I really didn't know what went wrong. They gave me the cliched reason of another candidate who "fits the position slightly better" than me. Technically there shouldn't have been a problem as I went very well on the discussions with the team lead. I was ~80% confident that I would be made an offer.
At the end I retrospect that the f2f interview was not fulfilling from my side. It was not also complete as I was not given a chance to ask any questions. Why the non-technical person ask so many irrelevant questions? Were they looking for someone who could play a technical role as well as some leadership role? Did they really wanted to hire me or collect some type of data so as to build/fill some type of an internal database on potential foreign employees (remember Bosch has many locations worldwide)?
