Lousy company with a poor interview structure in the UK office. They have less than 10 people, sharing an open-floor with another architecture company. The desks look dull and messy, and quality of staff wasn't particularly impressive, they were unprofessional though friendly. The 1st round began going into the office, greeted abruptly by the Project Head person in London. Took into a room joining a group of 6 people. We were asked to introduce ourselves and explain briefly why Alcimed, despite having a really thin impression of the firm. The session then began by the 2 guys showing us the title page of a presentation projected to the wall. Expected to be presented about the company, we were instead asked to ask any questions about it. So the usual questions go, asking about profitability and getting answers like how fast they are growing etc. They were saying they are aiming to grow 30% a year in London Office. They did not specify that this was revenue and when I questioned cost, the UK head person who clearly looks inexperienced appeared very sensitive about such issue, and fired back defensive question: WHY DO YOU WANT TO KNOW!? I was a bit shocked as I just wanted to find out about profitability. The calibre of the candidates were generally poor, with one or two being very keen in asking many really dumb questions, in broken English. After an hour or so of pretending to be an intellectual discussion, we were asked if we have changed our mind to choose the Consultant role or Development role, the latter is essentially a sales job and they expect you to be ready to bring in business having came straight out of uni... loads of non-sense. Then we were given 5 minutes to prepare for a 2min pitch on everything we know about Alcimed, assuming we were facing potential clients. The usual pitch goes and everyone was bored, and funny enough 1 girl actually left after the first hour talk due to boredom of the role and the company, clearly wasn't for her. I wanted to leave too but didn't want to appear unprofessional . We then did a 5min interview with 1 guy. This dude didnt ask any question, but basically just asked me to ask him questions, nothing else. Stupid structure, poor organisation, mediocre people, low perspective. To balance things however, staff were generally friendly but thats all. The firm offers £30-36K to Consultants, and £3K less for Business Development Managers though the latter has upside from bonus.

My first interview was held in Paris with a group of other candidates. It was really pleasant to see such a young environment. The interviewers were very forthcoming and the whole group interview went quite relaxed. As I moved to the second round I was invited to the Brussels for the 1on1 interview with managers. Also young environment, I was pleasantly greeted. There were two behavioural interviews, one with young, really nice manager and the other mid age manager with a few questions why this company and this role. It was a bit more stressful but nothing unusual and difficult. The refunds for my trips were done in one month after the interviews. All in all, really positive and vibrant atmosphere, and was a bit sad I didnt get the job. But know it was due to my unpreparedness.