They bring all interviewees in on one day (not Friday for me, as with another reviewer, but Tuesday, I think it was). They put me up in a nice hotel far away from the company site. Finding the company is like figuring out a maze - really. Study the route thoroughly on Google Maps. You go through lots of 'roundabouts' and you could easily get completely turned around. Get there very early, not only for that reason but because, as another person said, getting a parking space is virtually impossible. I had to circle for about fifteen minutes, getting more and more nervous, before determining that the only space I would find would be at the furthest 'outpost' of Globalfoundries before the forest starts up at the very end of the property. I had no choice but to park illegally along some 'no parking' red painted area, blocking traffic slightly. The walk to the entrance was about eight or so minutes. Note that a busy highway is the typical route needed to get there and you may get delayed, especially since you will not be familiar at all with the area.
The first part of the interview process was strange. I was told that there would be a 'group activity' but it sounded more like a group orientation to show us all the facility, tell us about the company, etc - it sounded nice. It turned out to be completely different: it was a competitive contest where all of us were being watched and notes were taken. Not only that, the 'proctors' or test attendants turned out to be, unbeknownst to me, two of the people who would be interviewing me (that was a slightly uncomfortable revelation).
The group activity was a hypothetical situation where all the approx. ten interviewees were an ad hoc team thrown together with no knowledge of our skills or background. We had to come up with a plan to assemble and sell cars using models with many wooden and plastic parts, some of which were defective and wouldn't fit. There were parts of multiple models all thrown together in boxes and we quickly had to sort them and organize how to assemple them with as few defective parts as possible (because these cars couldn't be sold). We had to make estimates up front about how many cars we could deliver and were penalized for any shortfall. This was all strictly timed - you could feel the sense of urgancy in the air.
That was kind of ingenious in a sense, but it put pressure on interviewees who were already under pressure. It created an instant 'pecking order', where the most aggresive people started taking charge and giving orders. It was an interesting psychological study, perhaps, but not helpful to see if I, as an interviewee, would be a good Failure Analysis Technician.
The interviews were generally, in contrast to the 'group activity', very low key and no difficult questions were asked - only things that any candidate for this type job should know. However, one interviewer was very tough in his attitude and I was immediately put off by him. I could tell he didn't like me and that I wouldn't get the job just on his input alone. He made the preposterous claim that working nights (like 6:30pm-6:30am) he only needed two hours sleep. Not only is this an impossible pace to keep up, but it is unhealthy (see many studies on shift workers and obesity, heart disease, depression, etc.) and I don't believe for a minute that he or anyone, especially someone in his fifties as he was, could keep that up for long. Surely people trying to work there with so little sleep would begin quickly to have accidents, destroy product, and damage equipment. It is a fact of life, though, that working nights on compressed many people end up getting very little sleep just because of insomnia, not being able to drown out sounds of lawnmowers and traffic, disturbed circadian rhythm, family demands (maybe having a sick toddler or other issue at home), etc. In that sense, being able to work twelve hour shifts for four days with only two hours sleep per day would indeed be a very big plus for someone working there.
The other interviewers were nice, friendly, but mostly reserved. I couldn't get a feel for how working for Globalfoundries would be like. I got a very good impression of Global from the look of the facilities and from the HR people who ushered us in, but could not gauge at all the feelings of employees. I got the impression that Global was run kind of like a typical Korean or Japanese company - very, very tough places to work. For example, the interviewer who only gets two hours sleep per night told me that 'we don't take two hour breaks after each sample' (as he presumed we did at Texas Instruments, I gathered) - this alone told me I would be watched and expected to perform like a machine if I were working at Global.
